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J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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J UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. J 




HERE WE ARE. 



HEALTH LESSONS 



A PRIMARY BOOK 



BY 



JEROME WALKER, M. D, 

LECTURER OX HYGIENE AT THE LONG ISLAND COLLEGE HOSPITAL, 

AND ON PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE AT THE BROOKLYN CENTRAL GRAMMAR-SCHOOL ; 

CONSULTING PHYSICIAN TO THE BROOKLYN SEA-SIDE HOME FOR CHILDREN ; 

LATE PHYSICIAN TO ST. JOHN'S HOSPITAL, THE SHELTERING ARMS NURSERY, 

AND THE BROOKLYN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN. 



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AUG 291887 



NEW YORK 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1887 







Copyright, 1887, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 



PREFACE. 



In this little book the aim has been to teach 
health-subjects to young children in a truthful and 
interesting way, and by somewhat different methods 
than those usually employed. While there is special 
teaching as to the effects of alcoholic stimulants and 
of narcotics upon the human system, they are pre- 
sented in such a way, in connection with other sub- 
jects, as is believed will appeal most forcibly to the 
imagination and the reasoning powers of children, 
and leave the strongest impressions upon the mind 
as to the evils attending the use of these things. 

The lessons in the book have been tested in ten- 
minute talks and reviews to the primary classes of 
the Brooklyn Training-School for Teachers. Most 
of the illustrations were evolved by the author as 
the manuscript progressed ; but, without the hearty 
interest and artistic skill of Messrs. Harry and Dan 
Beard, and of Dr. R. L. Dickinson, they would have 



4 PREFACE. 

failed to explain the text, and to impress facts upon 

the memory. . 

The initial letters (at the opening of the several 

lessons, and of the talk to teachers), taken together, 

make a sentence of three words, which form the 

motto of the book, and which the pupils might try 

to decipher. 

J. W. 

8 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn, May i, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



LESSON PAGE 

To the Teachers .7 

I. — Our Bodies 13 

II. — What our Bodies need 21 

III. — Air and Sunlight 30 

IV. — Breathing — Voice — Air-Supply 38 

V. — Use and Abuse of Food 48 

VI. — How Food becomes Blood 56 

VII.— What to Eat ......... 67 

VIII. — Wear and Repair 81 

IX. — Warmth and Clothing ... ... 91 

X. — Cleanliness 104 

XI.— Work and Play 116 

XII.— Our Framework 124. 

XIII.— How we Move 132 

XIV.— Rest *40 

XV — The Brain and the Nerves 14 s 

XVI.— The Senses 163 

APPENDIX. 

XVII.— Accidents, Injuries, and Poisons . 177 

INDEX I9 1 



TO THE TEACHERS. 



If s^T AVING had ample opportunity during the 

Jfejjjji^^ 1 last twenty years to study children, both in 

Sia^ai ij^M health and disease, and also occasion to in- 

3 struct them in hygienic matters, there has 

:^fa^=3^"-^_ -M been formulated in the mind of the writer, 

tL^^JjJ I as a result of this experience, the follow- 

J^^^^ "" iy ing maxims : 

i. Health-subjects should be systemati- 
cally taught to young children, not only to prolong their life and 
insure them comfort, but also to enable them the better to cope 
with other studies. 

2. In order to teach health-subjects well, the teacher should 
have broad, unprejudiced views, and should never allow himself 
to ride hobbies. Owing to our present limited knowledge of some 
hygienic subjects, and because children as well as adults are not 
molded alike, but have individual peculiarities, it is frequently neces- 
sary, if we are strictly honest in our teaching, to say, " as a rule," 
"generally," etc. 

To teach that certain health laws are inflexible and must apply 
to all children alike, is an absurdity. A late celebrated teacher of 
medicine used to enjoin his students to generalize the disease, but 
to individualize the patient. So it may be said to all instructors 
in hygienic subjects, generalize your hygienic teaching; study your 
children before you attempt to insist upon the observance of what 
may casually seem to you to be just health laws. If children think 



8 TO THE TEACHERS. 

they are not able, or if they appear not to be able, to obey them, it 
may be well to consult, in regard to such children, some medical 
authority, such as the family physician. By this course, injustice 
may be averted. 

3. In teaching health-matters to your children, little stress 
should be laid on purely anatomical points. Such are the names 
and location of bones, muscles, and blood-vessels. 

Anatomy is proverbially a dry subject, and hard to be remem- 
bered, even by adults ; and surely only enough should be taught to 
prepare the way for physiology, which is of greater interest, and 
even this should be subordinate to the study of hygiene, or the art 
and science of the preservation of health, which is the main object 
of our present instruction. It is pitiful to see children oppressed 
by a mass of technical anatomical knowledge, which is of little in- 
terest to them, which they find hard to remember, and which can 
be acquired later if necessary, and which should not take the place 
of hygienic subjects of greater interest and importance. 

4. Traditions and popular beliefs concerning health and dis- 
ease should be very carefully weighed before being given to chil- 
dren. A little girl came from school one day greatly worried 
because her teacher had told her class that whenever any one sighs 
a drop of blood is lost, a tradition which has no foundation in fact. 
Over and over again has it been taught that the body changes once 
in every seven years, whereas in reality many of its particles or cells 
are changing constantly, so that it is impossible to truthfully say 
that the entire body changes in a certain specified time. 

There is much untrustworthy hygienic teaching in schools, be- 
cause of many popular but foolish traditions as to what is and what 
is not necessary for health ; and some teachers, as well as some 
other non-medical people, are so constituted that they believe that 
they can doctor others, though they would scorn to dabble in 
astronomy, theology, philosophy, psychology, or even horse-doc- 
toring. 

5. Ample time and care should be given to the study of physi- 
ology and hygiene, and judgment in their application, A super- 



10 THE TEACHERS. g 

intendent of public schools in a large city once said: "Physiology 
is not only an interesting but an easy study, for every one carries 
lessons on the subject about with him in his own body." A prin- 
cipal of a high-school remarked that the study of physiology and 
hygiene need not take a whole term, for he had taught both sub- 
jects to a class in six weeks. Both these statements convey wrong 
impressions. While it is true that we do carry our individual 
anatomy and physiology about with us, the possession of these 
neither teaches us the laws of health nor shows us how to teach 
hygiene in a truthful, interesting, and unbiased way. 

While it may be considered a brilliant feat to complete a course 
of study in a very short time, it is not in the case of physiology and 
hygiene a wise thing to do ; for, unlike some other studies, which 
are useful only in stimulating the memory or perceptive powers, 
the study of health is to give comfort, to maintain and strengthen 
all the resources of the body, and, to prolong life and, to yield the 
best results, should begin with the primary pupil and end only with 
the life of the individual. Its teachings can be used not only for 
the betterment of school-life, but apply also to the home-life, and 
they enhance the value of all other studies, and will cause them to 
be learned more intelligently. The study of health, therefore, should 
not be finished in any stated number of weeks. 

It has been maintained that teachers of health-subjects should 
be able to say to their pupils, " Do as I do, not as I say." Theoreti- 
cally this is right, practically wrong : for a teacher may not be 
physically strong, and yet give sound instruction on physical cult- 
ure ; while a robust teacher may be so full of vitality and strength 
as to fail to appreciate the natural feebleness of some pupils, and 
may thus unintentionally impose upon them tasks which only the 
strongest pupil can master. 

Again, a teacher may have very strong likes or dislikes for cer- 
tain articles of food ; or, because of intemperate friends, may see 
nothing but evil in an alcoholic stimulant, even when used as a 
medicine by a careful and conscientious physician ; or may have 



10 TO THE TEACHERS. 

suffered so much in early days from the evil results of bad air, that 
as a teacher he talks forever about the necessity of good air, to the 
exclusion of other equally important topics. 

Let the teacher aim to make the study of health truthful, inter- 
esting, and practical. Do not confine yourselves to the study of 
one text-book. On some subjects there is unanimity of opinion 
among authors, on others an honest difference of opinion. A text- 
book, such as this little one before you, while of value as a nucleus 
for study, and to awaken in children an interest in health-matters, 
can not cover all sanitary subjects, or give more than an outline of 
any one. Among the publications that can be read or studied with 
profit by the teacher are — 

The Sanitarian, a monthly journal. 

Lend a Hand, a monthly journal. 

Health Primers, D. Appleton & Co., New York. 

Health Primers, Presley Blakiston, Philadelphia. 

Dangers to Health (illustrated), Presley Blakiston, Philadelphia. 

The Maintenance of Health, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 

Health Notes for Students, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 

Number One, Funk & Wagnalls, New York. 

Wear and Tear, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. 

Healthy Skin, Lindsay & Blakiston, Philadelphia. 

History of a Mouthful of Bread, Harper & Brothers, New York. 

The Servants of the Stomach, Harper & Brothers, New York. 

Manual of Dietetics, William Wood & Co., New York. 

Huf eland' s Art of Prolonging Life, Lindsay & Blakiston, 
Philadelphia. 

Reports of State Boards of Health. 

To interest children the teacher should use plain, simple lan- 
guage, but not babyish talk, and it will be necessary to go over and 
over again almost every subject. Blackboard drawings, even the 
most crude, are useful to fix points in the memory. Appropriate 
stories may be used to exemplify physiological and hygienic facts. 
Suitable pictures (even caricatures) from illustrated papers and 
children's books can be collected and used as occasion requires. 



TO THE TEACHERS. II 

A good magnify ing-glass will show the markings of the skin and 
some of the pores. An occasional glimpse through a microscope 
of a drop of blood, some starch-granules, a section of the skin, or a 
gland, will enliven the study. Dissections can be made, before the 
class, of the heart, lungs, larynx, eye, or leg of some animal, care 
being taken to rid the specimens of as much blood as possible, and 
using cotton wadding and soft tissue-paper to remove stains, and to 
hide objectionable features. 

To make health-subjects practical, places may be indicated 
upon the body where the pulse can be felt. Habits of cleanliness 
should be taught. Children should be shown how to expand the 
lungs properly, and what differences there are between poorly and 
well expanded chests. By listening over the chest of a fellow-pupil 
the child can learn how the current of air sounds as it goes in and 
out of the lungs during their contraction and dilatation. The 
teacher can show, with feathers, and in other ways, what is meant 
by currents or draughts of air ; can show what is meant by properly 
ventilating and warming a room ; can make pupils understand how 
it is that contagious diseases may spread in a school, if children 
who have been ill with such diseases return to school before they 
have entirely recovered, and especially if their outer clothing comes 
in contact with that of other children in badly ventilated hallways 
or wardrobes. Calisthenic exercises will be made more interesting 
if from time to time measurements are taken of the circumference 
of arms, waists, and chests. Bad habits may sometimes be over- 
come by reasoning with a child from a health standpoint, and bad 
tendencies broken up through a knowledge, on the part of both 
teacher and pupil, of what is healthful. 

While a teacher should not take the place of a parent, there are 
times when a conscientious teacher with a knowledge of health laws 
can influence the child best through his home-life and its surround- 
ings. Sometimes it will be impossible to have in the school-room 
clean hands and faces, well-brushed hair, clean teeth, sweet breath, 
freedom from bodily odors and from bad language, until home in- 
fluences are bent in this direction. So the teacher may be a health 



12 TO THE TEACHERS, 

missionary, and by inducing an appreciation of cleanliness, order, 
purity, health, and strength, his hold on the child's mental faculties 
becomes stronger and more hopeful, and teaching is no longer mere 
drudgery. 

fc The lessons in this book should be carefully read by the pupils 
in the class-room, and comments and explanations made by the 
teacher when necessary. By dividing each lesson as printed into 
several, by means of the paragraphs, the pupils will not tire. 



HEALTH LESSONS 




LESSON I. 

Our Bodies. 

ROBABLY most of the children 
who read this book have pet dogs, 
cats, or rabbits, or, if the readers 
are girls, dolls of various kinds. 
Some of you have neither such 
pets nor dolls, but little baby sis- 
ters and brothers ; and I agree with 
you that these pets are the best of 
all, because they learn to laugh and 
talk, and to coo in their winning way, and to put 
their soft, chubby arms around our necks. But the 
dolls can never do this, if they should last a hundred 
years. 

2. Some of the girls, I am sure, have made rag or 
paper dolls, or perhaps corn-cob dolls with corn-silk 
hair, and you have dressed them nicely, and painted 
smiling faces ; but they stay smiling, unless you paint 
them differently, and they are never able to undress 
themselves. Some of you have seen scarecrow-men 
in the fields. At a distance they looked like real 



14 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



men, but when you came close to them all that you 
found was some old clothes put over poles or sticks. 



1 - r 





3. Even the 
very youngest 
boy among you 
(if he happens 
to live where 
there is snow) 
knows how and 
has helped to 
make a snow 
man, with a 
great big snow- 
ball for his 
trunk, or the largest part of the body, a smaller one 
for his head, and smaller ones still for the neck and his 
limbs — that is, the arms and legs. When he is com- 
plete, he appears something like a real man, but the 
winds blow dirt over him, which he can not brush 



1 6 HEALTH LESSONS. 

off ; and the sun comes out and blazes at him until his 
head droops, an arm drops off, and he melts away 
little by little, and disappears in a pool of snow-water. 
No matter how much the boys want to keep him, 
they can not give him food to strengthen him ; they 
can not warm him by pipes inside filled with some 
warm fluid ; they can not induce him to move. His 
joints (that is, where his knees, elbows, fingers, wrists, 
shoulders, ankles, and hips ought to bend) are stiff, 
and in his neck and back there is not the slightest 
chance of any movement. 

4. The snow-man is not so well provided for as 
are dolls, especially the jointed dolls, which have not 
the freedom and pleasure that your pets have ; yet 
the pets are not to be compared with babies, who 
have some one to care tenderly for them. But some 
one says : " The dolls don't suffer pain — you can stick 
pins into them without hurting them ; but babies do 
suffer pain." Yes, that is so, and the human baby is 
really more helpless than the baby of any other kind 
of animal, but nrne of us would like to be a doll nor 
a pet animal. 

5. It is important to know something about babies, 
as well as about children and grown-up people, for, 
if they don't die from some accident or severe illness, 
the babies will become children, and finally men and 
women. Much illness and many accidents occur be- 
cause the people who have charge of babies do not 
take proper care of them, or the children are not 
taught how to take care of themselves. Some of you, 



OUR BODIES. 



17 



no doubt, have seen your pet animals sicken and per- 
haps die, because you either did not give them enough 
water, food, or shelter, or you have over-cared for 
them. So babies, children, and grown folk need just 
enough, and not too much, food, warmth, exercise, 
and other things necessary for health and strength. 

6. But, before you can understand why people 
should need all these things more than dolls, and 
scarecrows, and snow-men, and even than most lower 
animals do, you must know of what our bodies are 
made, how all the parts do their work, and what is 
necessary to keep them in good condition. You must, 
therefore, study a little Anatomy, Physiology, and 
Hygiene. 

7. Our bodies, or the houses we live in, are more 
wonderful than any other houses, and, whether we 
are rich or poor, they are very much alike. Did any 
of you ever think that your bodies don't belong to 
you, that they are simply loaned to you ? If you 
take good care of them, they may last you many 
years. If you don't, you may only live in them a 
very few years. 

8. Our bodies (with the exception of our arms and 
legs) are divided into room-like places ; but these 
places are not empty, as you find many of your dolls 
are when they get broken. In each of our heads 
is delicate machinery by which we move our eyes, 
tongues, arms, and legs ; and other machinery by 
which we talk, see, smell, hear, taste, feel, and, above 
all, think. In the trunk is the breathing apparatus 



1 8 HEALTH LESSONS. 

and the machinery for making and carrying blood ; 
the mill, where the food is softened ; and the liver 
and other parts or organs, which may be called fac- 
tories or store-houses. There are other kinds of 
machinery in the trunk besides those already named, 
but we must tell you about these later. 

9. Our arms and legs are not solid, neither are 
they hollow nor filled with sawdust nor rags as dolls 
are. In them are muscles, which help us to walk, 
run, make gestures, play ball or any games, and to 
do useful work; also delicate tubes to carry in 
nourishment, and to carry off what must pass out of 
the body, dead and useless matter. To keep the 
muscles and tubes and other things besides in place, 
and so preserve them from injury and from getting 
in one another's way, there is packing material, some 
of which is more delicate than that which is put 
around the beautiful French and German toys, and 
about fine glass-ware. This packing material is found 
in all parts of the body, and is known as connective 
tissue, because it connects one part with another. 

10. Now, if all this beautiful and delicate machin- 
ery we have mentioned is properly taken care of, boys 
and girls will be likely to grow up strong and well, 
and be able to do much good in the world, by know- 
ing how to prevent illness and pain. We can't afford 
just to grow as Topsy, in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," said 
she did — that is, just up and up, or round and round, 
or from side to side ; but we must improve the mind, 
and learn all we can about ourselves, about flowers 



20 HEALTH LESSONS. 

and animals and all living things, and many things 
that can't be said to be alive, such as stones and 
shells. This knowing more and more, and being able 
to do more and more, is called development, a big 
word, but one you ought to remember. 

n. Your animal pets do not develop very much, 
neither do the flowers. Things without life do not 
even grow. A piece of thread never grows into cord 
or rope, nor a little baby doll into a grown-up doll. 
You see in this picture (drawn from a photograph) 
what at first looks like a real bride, but after all it is 
only a pretty little girl who has been dressed up like 
a bride. It will be a long time before she can wear 
a real bride's dress, for it takes years for growth and 
development. 

For Recitation. 

i. How do pet animals differ from dolls, or snow-men, or scare- 
crows ? They can move of their own accord — can eat, smell, feel, 
and hear. 

2. How do human beings differ from pet animals? They can 
remember more, learn more, and do more. 

3. Why is it necessary to take more care of babies and animals 
than of dolls ? Because, if we do not, they will become ill and die. 

4. How can we know how to care for ourselves, for babies, and 
for animals ? By learning of what the bodies are made, how all the 
parts do their work, and what is necessary to keep the bodies in 
good condition. 

5. What is the result if our bodies are in good condition and we 
take proper care of them ? They grow larger and stronger, and, by 
developing •, gradually enable us to learn and do more and more. 




LESSON II. 

What our Bodies need, 

• 

F we are to work or play well, our 
bodies must be in good condition, 
or in " prime order," as the farmer 
would say of his sleek and healthy 
cattle. Weak and sickly persons 
may work and play, but they can 
not enjoy all they do as strong, 
healthy people can. There are 
many little boys and girls so delicate that they can't 
play tag, puss in the corner, or hop-scotch, without 
being tired out. 

2. No one can be well unless the body keeps warm, 
even without the aid of very warm fires and much 
clothing. Your doll's body does not feel warm unless 
it is in a very warm room, or in warm out-door air; 
for, if by mistake you should leave her out in the 
yard, and the weather should grow even a little cold, 
she would be cold too. But, if you should find a 
little kitten out in the cold, even if the rain had 
fallen, and the kitten's fur was wet, its body would 
feel warm. It would take very cold weather to make 
the kitten's body feel cold ; and, if it did feel so, poor 



22 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



little kitty would probably be either dead or dying. 
Why does the doll's body feel cold, while the kitten's, 
the dog's, and your own are warm ? Because the 



VJP 




Some of the Machinery : W P, the wind-pipe ; H, the heart ; Lu, the 
lungs ; D, the diaphragm ; S, the stomach ; Li, the liver ; L I, the 
large intestine ; S I, the small intestine. 



WHAT OUR BODIES NEED. 23 

doll is not alive, as you and the kitty and the dog 
are. 

3. And what is being alive? It is motion; for 
even if you are perfectly still, perhaps injured so 
you can not move even a finger, so long as you are 
alive your heart will be beating, and all the wonder- 
ful machinery inside of your body will be moving. 
Streams of warm blood flow rapidly from one part 
of the body to another, carrying food and warmth. 
The heart pumps the blood into the tubes which carry 
it through the body. The lungs take in pure air 
and send out bad air ; thousands of little bags called 
glands empty themselves into the mouth, throat, nose, 
and other parts of the body, so as to keep these parts 
moist and smooth. 

4. It seems sometimes as if there must be hun- 
dreds and hundreds of little fairies busy inside of us, 
so quietly and quickly is all the work done. While 
we are alive, all the motion continues, and keeps 
the inside of our bodies warm, and that warms the 
outside too. If we are lazy or ill, and don't stir 
about very much, we are likely to be easily chilled ; 
for then our inside parts do not work so quickly and 
smoothly as they should. So, you see, life in us means 
motion, and motion means warmth, and warmth is neces- 
sary to health. 

5. There are animals in whom the blood does 
not move fast enough to keep them warm in cold 
weather, such as frogs, bats, snakes, and turtles. 
When the cold weather comes, they go into holes 



24 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



in the ground and trees, or under rocks. They 
sometimes come out on a warm day for a breath 




of fresh air, 
and to bask 
in the sun- 
shine, but 
most of the 

time keep under cover. Compare a frog or turtle 
in cold weather with a rabbit. The frog sleeps 



WHAT OUR BODIES NEED. 25 

underground, and only leaps when compelled to ; but 
the rabbit kicks up his heels, stamps on the ground, 
runs in and out of the bushes, jumps over stones, 
and is very lively. 

6. Perhaps you will see what warmth can do 
when I tell you that frogs and snakes have been kept 
in an ice-house for two years and more, and then 
restored to life, by bringing them into warm air. 
Children and most of their pet animals are warm- 
blooded, and would live but a short time in an ice- 
house, though it is as true of them as of the cold- 
blooded animals that, to bring life and motion back 
to the body, warmth is necessary. 

7. Our bodies give out heat, so that, if in winter a 
room has many people in it, and the windows and 
doors do not admit much air, the room will be quite 
warm without any stove in it. The farmer knows 
that a number of cows or horses in a close stable, 
even if the weather is cold, will keep the stable quite 
warm. Babies who are too young to move about 
much, and old people whose bodies are worn out by 
age and toil, often suffer much from cold, unless they 
have enough warm clothing, and the rooms they live 
in are warm and comfortable. 

8. Sturdy boys and girls can endure a good deal of 
cold, but these should not brag about their strength, 
and run unnecessary risks. I know boys and girls, 
and so do you, w T ho will sit on the cold stones in 
winter, after being overheated with a game of tag, 
or who will lie on the grass in the autumn when 



26 HEALTH LESSONS, 

the earth is growing cold, or in the early spring 
when the frost is coming out of the ground, leaving 
it damp and chilly. The cold and damp take much 
warmth from the bodies of these children, and often 
cause sore throats and other diseases. To keep up 
warmth, then, is very important ; and proper air, food, 
exercise, bathing, and clothing will help to do it. 

9. Another thing our bodies need for health, which 
gives strength and beauty, is purity, or cleanliness. 
You know that in cities dirt-carts come around once 
in a while to carry off the dirt which lies in the 
streets. Men go down into the sewers to clean them 
out. Vacant lots, in which water stands and becomes 
stagnant and dangerous to health, are filled with dry 
earth and ashes, and bonfires are made to get rid of 
dead and decaying leaves, etc. All this is done to 
purify the cities and make them healthful. 

10. In our houses we burn garbage and everything 
that we believe, by decaying, may poison the air about 
us. Cellars, closets, and pantries, as well as bedrooms, 
sitting-rooms, and nurseries, should be kept clean and 
sweet. Now, we can't sweep or scrub out our bodies, 
nor use whitewash, nor can we hire any fairies to do 
all this, and yet it is necessary for health that our 
bodies should be kept clean both inside and outside. 
But care of the outside, by bathing, exercise, and 
clothing, will help to keep the inside clean. 

n. Not all that we eat turns into blood. Some of 
the skin of an apple, some of the coarse part of brown 
bread, or the seeds of figs and grapes, for example, 



WHAT OUR BODIES NEED. 



27 



help the food to hurry along ; but would do harm 
if not cast out of the body. Some of the air we 
breathe into our lungs becomes poisoned by the ma- 
terial which is constantly dying in the body. This 
must escape by the lungs, and through the skin and 
kidneys. 

12. While Ave are asleep and when we are awake, 
the thousands of little cells, or rounded bodies which, 
when joined together, make our muscles, bones, skin, 
and every part of our bodies, are drinking in for their 
growth the food which the blood brings them, and 
sending away what they can not use, to be cast out 
of the body. If we are lazy and don't stir around, 
if we eat too much, if we are dirty, we don't give 
these little cells a fair chance to do their work, and 
then we don't feel well. 

13. If a person gets into the bad habit of drink- 
ing alcoholic liquors, his mind is not clear and clean, 
and he does not care, or know enough, to keep his 
clothing and body clean, and becomes disgusting to 
everybody. What a blessing it is that dolls and pet 
animals don't upset themselves by drink ! 

14. While warmth, motion, and purity are neces- 
sary for life and health, they can not make us live 
forever. Everybody dies, from the tiny insect, whose 
life is but a few hours long, to the greatest and most 
useful man or woman. But he gets the most good 
out of life, and usually lives the longest, who takes 
proper care of himself. Most of us ought to live 
to be at least sixtv years old ; some to eightv, or 



WHAT OUR BODIES NEED. 



2 9 



even one hundred. Your puppy ought to live fifteen 
or twenty years, your kitten ten years, a horse forty 
years. Your doll, if good care is taken of her, should 
last many years. I know of one thirty-six years old. 
She is called the " old-fashioned girl," because she is 
dressed as people were dressed over thirty years 
ago, and her hair is smoothed down over her tem- 
ples, She doesn't know what bangs are. Here she 
is surrounded by other dolls. Bear in mind that, 
though a doll may last a number of years, it does 
not live. 

For Recitation. 

1. To be in good health, what are necessary ? Warmth, motion, 
and purity. 

2. Why is warmth necessary? Without it, the blood would not 
move, and the duty of the blood is to build up the body. 

3. Is there much motion in the body during life ? Yes ; not only 
do the heart, lungs, stomach, and other organs move frequently, but 
also particles in bones, muscles, and every part. 

4. What are these particles called ? Cells. 

5. How is purity or cleanliness necessary ? Without it, the par- 
ticles of the body which die or are used up every moment, to make 
place for new material, would poison the body. They could not be 
cast out. 




LESSON III. 

Air and Sunlight. 

HE baby, the puppy, and the doll, 
which you see in the picture, in 
the fore part of the book, don't 
know what they are to meet with 
in the world. 

2. If the baby and puppy are 
to have warmth, motion, and health, they need most 
of all plenty of pure air and sunshine. One can live 
without food for several days; but not for five min- 
utes without air. Without plenty of good air every 
day, and the light and warmth that the sun gives, 
both the baby and the puppy will get thin and un- 
happy ; the baby will become pale, for the blood 
will lose its healthy red color, and he will neither en- 
joy food nor feel like playing. The puppy will droop, 
too, and will not be a very lively dog. 

3. When the air is not pure, or when there is not 
enough of it, a candle will not burn well, and we call 
it a sickly light ; without sunshine green plants bleach 
out like celery. Some of you have seen in the cellar, 
or storehouse, a little potato-plant stretching forth its 
tender stalk and leaves toward the ray of light from 



AIR AND SUNLIGHT. 



31 



some crack or hole, just as if the leaflets were arms 

to grasp and hold the precious light, which, with its 

friend and ally, 

air, is meant 

to give life and 

health. 

4. You who 
live in the coun- 
try know that 
along the fenc- 
es, and on the 
shady side of 
big trees or 
thickets, there 
are many little 
white, or light- 
green, tender 
plants ; while 
out in the mead- 
ow, where the 
sun and air have 
full play, leaves 
are of a darker 
green, flowers of 
brighter hue. 

5. In portions 
of large cities, 

people are crowded together in great numbers, some 
houses holding thirty or more families, who, because 
they are poor, and house-rent is high, live in rooms 
3 




32 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



which for most of the time are very dark. The 
windows become grimed and dirty from the smoke 
which the broken stove gives out, and from the 
dust which gathers in small rooms where so many 
people live. Some of these people don't wash the 
windows very often. When the windows are cleaned 







there is very little to 
. ~]fc J, ~ be seen through them 

gv*- ! I except blank walls, clothes-lines, and 
here and there a cat or dog. 

6. From some of these rooms you 
can not see the beautiful blue sky, nor clouds, nor a 
rainbow. In such houses as these the sun gets no 
chance to peep into the rooms to point out the dirt, 
and make people cheerful and happy, and put color 



AIR AND SUNLIGHT. 



33 



into their faces. Sometimes people live in dark cel- 
lars, or in rooms partly underground. Here is a pict- 
ure of a house, in the dark basement of which a 
family dwelt, and called it home, 

7. Some of you may say you know of houses in 
which people live who are not poor, where the sun- 
light is kept out of rooms, for fear it will spoil the 
furniture, and the people are pale and look unhealthy, 
and are so nervous that they easily lose their tem- 
pers, and learn to look on the dark side of things. 
Yes, and these people are likely to lose their appetite 
for health) 7 food ; and sometimes, because people are 
down-hearted, they fall into the habit of drinking 




liquors to drown their sorrows, as the)' say, but alas ! 
they may drown their souls instead. 

8. Here are two drawings that have been made 



34 HEALTH LESSONS. 

for you from photographs. The first shows the face 
of a little girl as she looked when just rescued from 
some cruel people, who had kept her for a long time 
in a house where she did not have enough light and 
air, although she had enough to eat, and nearly 
enough to wear. The second shows the same child, 
after she had been properly cared for, by kind peo- 
ple, for a month ; having had an abundance of good 
air and clothes, warm sunshine, and suitable food. 

9. The darkness of night is best for rest and quiet ; 
but to have our rooms dark in the day-time, and also 
dirty and filled with bad air, is to spoil our appetites, 
strength, feelings, and looks. Have you ever tried 
to keep plants in your rooms, and have you learned 
that in the dark they don't do well? Not only do 
they want sunlight, but the little mouths in their 
leaves must be open, and not stopped with dust, or 
else they can not drink in the air which is needed for 
the life of the plant. In the picture is a piece of the 
under side of a geranium-leaf, highly magnified to 
show the leaf-mouths. 

10. It is a good thing to keep plants in your rooms, 
for they will teach you many things, and the plants 
help to make the air pure. It is said that in an over- 
crowded tenement lived a little crippled girl who was 
pining away, because of bad air, darkness, insufficient 
food, and want of exercise. Flowering plants were 
given to the children living in this house, and a prize 
offered to the one who should have the most healthy- 
looking plant after a month or two. The crippled 



AIR AND SUNLIGHT. 



35 



girl received a fuchsia. Tenderly she cared for it 
each day ; watering and keeping the plant clean, giv- 
ing it air, and 
placing it each 
morning on a win 
dow-sill in such a 
way that it re- 




ceived the light of the early morning sun. The 
plant, under this treatment, grew strong and beauti- 
ful ; while many of the plants, not so cared for, faded 
and died. The rising sun and the fresh morning air 
revived the spirits and health of the little girl, and 
that was a greater prize for her than the money prize 
she received for her beautiful plant, 

1 1 . It w r ould be hard to live without plants and 
trees, for they consume some of the poisons found 
in the air, and so help to keep it pure. The carbonic- 
acid gas and other things bad for our breathing are 
swallowed by the plants through their leaves, and 
really build up the plant-life ; in turn, they send out 
a gas known as oxygen, which man and all other ani- 



36 HEALTH LESSONS. 

mals breathe, and which goes into the blood, and 
helps to furnish life and health. Children, as well as 
grown people, can do much good in the world by 
encouraging the planting of trees, and keeping those 
that are growing in good condition. Unfortunately, 
there are parts of our cities where there are no 
trees. 

12. Gas, fires, lamp and candle flames, especially 
if they smolder, and do not burn well, give out poison 
to the air. Poisonous material is thrown into the air 
from our skins and clothing. Food, by spoiling, helps 
to make the air impure. In some houses, even in hot 
weather, open dishes of butter, meat, and milk are 
carelessly left on the sills of windows opening into 
hallways. 

13. Dirty walls and ceilings, soiled clothing and 
bedclothing, make our rooms smell musty, or what 
some people call " stuffy." Even the cleanest room, 
when kept closed for a number of days, has a close, 
unpleasant smell, which, when once perceived, should 
be got rid of by letting in fresh air from out-of-doors. 
Close, dirty, bad-smelling rooms make worse such 
diseases as measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria. It 
is just as if the bad air were a cruel giant, who said, 
u These people will not use plenty of air and light, 
even when they can procure them, so I will send out 
my little imps of darkness and disease, to destroy the 
plants and flowers, and to bleach out the skins of 
such people, and make their blood poor." 



AIR AND SUNLIGHT. 



For Recitation. 



37 



i. How are sunshine and good air important for human beings 
and pet animals ? Without them human beings and other animals 
gradually lose the desire to move about, and so lose health and 
strength ? 

2. What helps to make the faces of people, and the leaves and 
stalks of plants, pale and sickly-looking ? Darkness, especially if 
with it is bad air. 

3. W T hy should we not live in dark rooms, houses, or streets ? 
Because by so doing the blood is made poor. 

4. Are trees and plants of use to us ? Yes ; they take into them- 
selves some of the poisons in the air about us, and give out gases 
which our blood needs. 

5. What diseases spread most rapidly where there are darkness 
and bad air ? Scarlet fever, diphtheria, and other contagious dis- 
eases. 




LESSON IV. 

Breathing— Voice — Air-Supply. 

LREADY some of the children are ask- 
ing what does he mean by breath- 
ing ; how can air outside the body 
affect the blood inside the body? 
Breathing is taking air into the body, 
through the throat and lungs, to 
purify the blood, and also sending 
out air which has been used, and is full of impurities. 

2. The tadpole, or polliwog (which, as some of 
you know, develops into a frog) breathes through 
its gills, which are little sacs branching out from 
the sides of the head, as in the picture B. These 
sacs are covered with many small blood-vessels filled 
with blood. As the tadpole swims about, these 
blood-vessels cast out into the water the impurities 
which they have brought from the inside of the body, 
and the blood becomes pure and of a bright-red color 
from the oxygen gas in the air, which is always found 
in water in which plants and animals live. 

3. As the tadpole begins to lose its tail, and its 
legs crop out, the gills gradually disappear, and 
when the tadpole has become a frog, there are in- 



PRE A THING— VOICE— AIR-SUP PL Y. 



39 



side the body what we call lungs, or in chickens and 
turkeys lights. These are large bags or sacs (shown 




at A in the picture;, 

which connect with 

the mouth by tubes. 

These sacs are divided 

by strong elastic walls 

into many little rounded rooms or cells. These are 

covered with blood-vessels. 



4Q 



HEALTH LESSONS. 




Section of Frog's 
Lung. 



4, The air comes into the many rounded rooms 
through the throat, wind-pipe, and branching pipes, 
called air or bronchial tubes. It 
gives purity to the blood in the 
blood-vessels, and receives carbonic- 
acid gas, and waste material from 
it, to be thrown out from the lungs 
through the nose or mouth. Why 
does the frog need such lungs ? Be- 
cause he is now to live on land as 
well as in the water, and will be 
larger and more active than he was 
as a tadpole, so will need more air. 
5. Our lungs are much larger in 
proportion to our size, and have many more rounded 
rooms, than the lungs of a frog, because we are to 
do much more work in the world. Instead of hav- 
ing only two large bags or sacs with rounded rooms, 
we have many small ones which we call lobules. 
From each lobule there goes out a very small tube, 
which joins with similar ones from other lobules, mak- 
ing one large tube. This large tube unites with others 
of the same sort into one still larger, and this in turn 
joins one of its own size to form the windpipe or 
trachea, which opens into the throat. This arrange- 
ment of lobules, little bronchial tubes, large bronchial 
tubes, and windpipe, is very much like the arrange- 
ment of the leaves, twigs, branches, and trunk of a 
tree. 

6. At the top of this windpipe is the larynx or 



PRE A THING— VOICE— AIR- SUP PL Y. 



41 



voice-box, through which the air passes in breathing, 
and in producing voice-sounds. In the larynx are 
two little bands called vocal cords. Voice-sounds are 
produced by the air passing between them, as their 
edges approach one another or move from one an- 
other. Pressure on the front of the neck by tight 
collars or bands will affect the voice and cut off some 
of the precious air that ought to go into the lungs. 

7. It is well for you to know where the voice-box 
is, and that the opening between the vocal cords for 
the air to go in and out is very small, and the inside 
of the voice-box is very sensitive. So it is a good 
habit to talk slowly, and in a low voice, and not to 
stutter or scream, for frequent loud talking, and cry- 
ing, will be likely to make your voice rough and 
hoarse. 

8. Your teachers of elocution and vocal music, 
knowing how important it is for children to train 
their voices slowly and gradually, if they want them 
to be strong and flexible, give you exercises to re- 
peat, which they know will help you, and which you 
sometimes think are tiresome and of no use. Your 
teachers might also tell you that smoking, liquor- 
drinking, wet feet, and draughts of cold air, injure 
your voices and sometimes damage your lungs. 

9. We should breathe through the nose, just as a 
healthy baby does. A baby when asleep lies so qui- 
etly with the mouth closed, breathing through the 
nose, that you hardly know whether or not it is alive. 
The nose inside is so warm and moist that cool air 



42 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



coming into its passages is warmed before entering 
the lungs, and some of the dust in it is prevented 
from going into the lungs. 

10. Persons who keep their mouths open a large 
part of the time are likely to snore when asleep, and 
the air admitted dries the mouth and induces disease. 
Indian mothers are very particular to keep their chil- 
dren's mouths shut in sleep, and teach them to keep 
them shut when running about and playing, which 
partly explains the Indian's strength of lungs and his 
great endurance. If you keep your mouth shut and 
breathe only through your nose, you can venture out- 
of-doors for a whiff of fresh air in the very coldest 
weather ; and one is better for a little out-door air each 
day, no matter how well aired his house may be. 

n. The fact is, to keep our rooms well aired or 
ventilated, we must have plenty of air come into them 
each day from out-of-doors, instead of from hallways, 
other rooms, or cellars, where the air is very likely 
to be impure. Go out-of-doors every day you can, 
but keep warm in cold weather by being warmly 
clad, and by moving about quickly. After having 
been out-of-doors for some time you will notice if the 
air in your rooms smells bad, but if you stay in the 
house most of the time you will not notice bad smells, 
and will be poisoned without knowing it. If you are 
wise, whether your nose tells you of bad smells or not, 
you will open your windows wide for a little while 
each day, and let the air blow through the rooms. 

12. In schools, especially if the rooms are small, 



ERE A THING— VOICE— AIR-SUPPL Y. 



43 



and there are many children in them, it is important 
for health and comfort that the children should go 
out-of-doors at recess, except in very stormy weather, 
that the rooms may be aired. If in winter a person 
must stay in a room while it is airing, he should walk 
around, or be warmly wrapped in a blanket or over- 
coat, or a shawl, and the wrappings should not be 
removed till the room is warmed again. 

13. In much-used rooms, or in large, overcrowded 
ones, one window should be open nearly all the time. 
It is well to place a board on its edge under the 
whole width of the lower sash. The air then enters 
the room where the upper part of the lower sash 
passes the lower part of the upper sash, and so does 
not blow directly upon people in the room. In cold 
or windy weather, when the cold air forces its way 
through every crack, it is not well to sit very close 
to the window nor door, unless the room is very 
warm. 

14. Another way of letting air into a room is to 
raise the lower sash, having first fastened to the 
lower part of the window-frame, on the inside, a 
piece of strong cloth about one foot in height, the 
ends of the cloth being fastened to the sides of the 
frame by thumb-screws, as in the picture, or by rings 
sewed upon the edges of the cloth, and passed over 
little hooks in the window-frame. This piece of cloth 
you can make pretty on the inside, outside, or both, 
by painting on it flowers, leaves, fruit, or birds. 
When it is in position, and the lower sash is raised, 



44 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



the air blows into the room and up over the cloth 
without blowing directly on persons within, even if 
a door is open. These two ways of airing a room 




:% 






fcS 



Swfc 






$rp£ View of ^i 
Window 



^The BxAttbYu^" '• 



cost but little, and can be used in any house, large or 
small. The airing will be more complete if the room 
has in it an open fireplace. 

15. When the winds don't have a chance to carry 
off the dust, little bits of hair, meat, cotton, wood, etc., 



BREA THING— VOICE— AIR-SUPPL Y. 45 

that are in it, as is the case in many houses, people 
breathe in these things in large quantities, and injure 
the lungs. The fathers and mothers of some of you 
have learned that when you are restless in your sleep, 
toss about, and throw off the bedclothes, the air in the 
room may be growing impure, and your lungs don't 
like to breathe bad air, so a window is opened, and 
you fall into a sweet, quiet sleep. Have plenty of 
fresh air in the house, but avoid draughts which " cut 
like a knife " ! 

16. There is always some cold air in a room mov- 
ing along the floor toward the stove or fireplace, if a 
door is open. So it is not well to sit or lie on the 
floor at such times. On account of this current of 
air along floors, some people take cold if they wear 
slippers. 

17. Sunlight and good fresh air will do wonders 
for us, if we will only let them. On the next page is 
a picture of some tenement-houses that used to have 
others close to them at the back, thus shutting off the 
light and air. The rooms were dark and dirty, the 
people in them sickly, and given to drunkenness and 
crime. Now all is changed. A lady bought these 
miserable houses, tore down the buildings in the rear, 
let in the light and the air, had the rooms put in 
good order, and planted flowers in the yards. Now 
the children are clean and happy ; would rather play 
in the yards than in the streets ; and in the houses, 
what a change ! I must let you imagine how great is 
the improvement. 



46 HEALTH LESSONS. 

1 8. Every summer many sickly and puny chiL 
dren, and tired-out mothers, go to the sea-shore for a 




week or two as guests at some sea-side home. There, 
on the beach and the broad piazzas, arranged to afford 
plenty of air and light without the glare and great 
heat of the sun, and with the aid of good food, they 



PRE A THING— VOICE— AIR-SUP PL V. 



47 



become different creatures. Yet so strong is the 
force of habit that some of these very people will go 
back to their houses in the city and live again in 
dark and dirty rooms. Now that you children know 
what air and sunlight will do, it is your duty to tell 
others about it, as well as to remember it carefully 
yourselves, and try to live accordingly. 

For Recitation. 

i. What is breathing? It is the taking of air into the body, and 
the sending out of air from the body. 

2. What is breathing for ? To purify the blood. The air that 
goes into the body carries to the blood oxygen gas, and the air that 
comes out brings with it from the blood carbonic-acid gas and other 
impurities. 

3. What are the principal organs of breathing? The nose, 
throat, windpipe, and lungs. 

4. What part of the body enables us to produce voice-sounds ? 
The larynx or voice-box at the upper end of the windpipe. 

5. Why do teachers of music and elocution drill pupils on exer- 
cises which at times seem tiresome to children ? Because by such 
exercises the voice is trained or made stronger. 

6. What interferes with the action of the lungs ? Living in bad 
air, and the use of clothing that is tight about the neck and chest. 

7. Why should we breathe through the nose ? Because in this 
way the air going, to the lungs is warmed, and rid of some of its 
dust. 

8. Why should we draw our supply of air from out-of-doo7's? 
Because the air in our houses becomes easily poisoned by gas and 
lamp flames, tobacco-smoke, and in many ways. 

9. What do we mean when we say our rooms should be ven- 
tilated ? That they should be well aired. 

10. How do sunlight and fresh air do good ? They improve the 
condition of the blood. 

4 




LESSON V. 

^he Use and Abuse of Food. 

OW that you know that neither 
you nor your puppy can live 
for five minutes without breath- 
ing, and that your doll never 
breathes, you probably want to 
know something about food. 
Some of you had thought noth- 
ing about air but much about food, though you really 
knew but little of the use of food. 

2. But of what use is food ? Well, without it the 
blood that was in your bodies when you were born 
would grow less and less, and finally shrink away al- 
together. No new blood would be made to take the 
place of the old, which would have gone into every 
part of the body ; so these would grow dry and use- 
less. If you should break your arm or your leg, 
there would not be blood enough to mend it — that is, 
to pour out material between the broken bones and 
muscles to hold them in place, until more blood 
could make new bones and muscles. 

3. Says some little boy or girl, " I thought food 
was to eat because it tastes good." No, the appetite 
for food was born in you to make you eat enough to 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF FOOD, 



49 



keep you alive, and make you grozu and develop, " We 
eat to live, not live 
to eat." An appe- 
tite is important, but 
there are good appe- 
tites and bad appe- 
tites, just as there are 
good children and 
bad children ; and 
all of us can turn 
good appetites into 
bad ones 
by feed- 
ing them 
on very 




' use* 



Slaves to appetite. 



50 HEALTH LESSONS. 

sweet or sour or rich things — that is, letting them 
have their own way, just as often good children be- 
come bad by having their own way. 

4. I would be sorry to know of any child who has 
never tasted good, pure candy ; but I would also be 
sorry for a child who wants to eat candy and sweet- 
meats, when he ought to eat good bread, milk, oat- 
meal, eggs, meat, fruit, and vegetables ; for these last 
things mentioned make the best blood in the shortest 
time. However good, candy, cake and pie may taste, 
if we had to live on them alone for a week or more, we 
would be like the little girl, told of in " St. Nicholas/' 
who lived in the candy country, where everything she 
ate was candy. Oh, how soon she became tired of it, 
and was glad to get back to good bread and milk ! 

5. Children who eat very largely of sweets, and 
use very little milk, ripe fruits, and vegetables, or 
who want to make a whole meal out of one kind of 
food, simply because they are fond of it, or, as they 
say, because they " love " it, are finical or greedy chil- 
dren, and they never ask whether the thing they 
like likes them. So they eat pickle after pickle, 
sweetmeat after sweetmeat, cake after cake, until 
the stomach will not stand it any longer, and begins 
to ache. Then comes a dose of medicine, not always 
pleasant to take. 

6. There are some children who go on, week after 
week, having stomach-aches, and taking medicine, be- 
fore they will learn that the best thing to do is to be 
careful. I know of several children who. will eat 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF FOOD. 



51 



quantities of sweet things, but who pick at proper 
food like little dainty birds, and who pout whenever 
told to eat what is good for them. Perhaps if they 
knew that the proper food would give color to their 
cheeks, brightness to their eyes, and strength to 
their bodies, and that sweets and other dainties 
destroy the brightness, the color, and the strength, 
they would act more wisely. 

7. What do you think of children who will not eat 
griddle-cakes unless loaded with sugar, or who must 
mix sugar and water with the milk they drink ; who 
dislike oatmeal, stewed potatoes, and the like, because 
they are " soft things" ; who refuse to eat what they 
know will do them good, simply because they think 
it will make them too fat, like some other child of 
their acquaintance ? We all want to learn, as far as 
we can, to eat a variety of food, so that wherever 
we may go we shall find something to eat that we 
like and that is good for us. 

8. Children, and grown people as well, sometimes 
wonder why they can't eat, as most of the lower ani- 
mals do, when and what they please. The fact is, 
that such animals seldom eat too much. Very sel- 
dom do the} 7 eat or drink what is hurtful or poison- 
ous, unless they are forced to it by human beings. 
People frequently eat too much, and are so anxious 
to eat, that they do not examine their food as they 
should, and so are made sick, from unripe fruit, or 
from dirt or poison in the food from unclean kettles, 
saucepans, and dishes. 




i. '..:>. > ^.:~^-.. 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF FOOD. 



53 



9. When all the girls learn how to cook nicely 
plain, every-day food, and to keep the food and the 
dishes it is cooked in and eaten from clean and sweet, 
and all the boys learn what is good food and how to 
buy it, fewer people will be poisoned than now are. 
Before closing this lesson, let us review what has 
been taught, and enlarge upon the topics if neces- 
sary : 

10. We eat food to make blood, and it is right 
to have it taste good, so that we will eat enough 
of it. 

11. A healthy appetite will show us what is good 
for food. We can spoil our appetites by living in- 
doors, by not taking enough exercise in the open 
air, by eating too much of sweet or rich things, and 
by smoking, or by drinking alcoholic liquors ; when 
spoiled, they are not able to tell us what we can eat 
with safety, so we get "sick all over" as people say, 
and have to take medicine. 

12. When we are no longer babies, we can eat 
something besides bread and milk ; and we should 
not eat too largely of one kind of food and leave 
other good kinds untouched. Go to the large mar- 
kets and see what there is to eat ; you will find many 
kinds of vegetables and fruits, besides meats, and 
food made from the grains ; oatmeal, wheaten-grits, 
flour, etc. Learn to like many of the plain, simple 
foods (milk especially is good), and to eat only 
occasionally of candies, pies, cakes, and sweet- 
meats. 



54 HEALTH LESSONS. 

13. Don't be fastidious nor greedy. Don't dislike 
a food without a very good reason. I know children 
who used to dislike tomatoes, egg-plant, parsnips, 
stewed fruit, oatmeal, milk-toast, and even ice-cream, 
and who now like them simply because they have 
made up their minds to try to like them for their 
own comfort and to please others. Begin with a very 
little of the thing you dislike ; eat it occasionally, and 
gradually more and more of it, till finally you like it. 

14. Learn to cook common things in many ways ; 
to be clean about your cooking, and to put food on 
the table looking nice ; and all this certainly can be 
done, even in the poorest families. Persons who 
can't eat potatoes boiled with their skins or jackets 
on, may like them baked, stewed, or cooked with 
meat. Food should be clean because it is easier 
for our stomachs to dispose of clean food, and be- 
cause we want to make it attractive to people with 
sensitive or " delicate " stomachs. The food should 
be nicely served, and the table neatly dressed, even 
with the plainest food or the least variety. Dirty or 
spotted table-cloths or napkins, sticky spoons, knives, 
and forks, greasy dishes, thick slices of bread, are 
not necessary, and spoil the relish for food. 

15. An old gentleman told me that when he was 
a little boy a rich man of the neighborhood came to 
take supper with his parents. The mother was wor- 
ried, for she had but little in the house to eat, and 
the rich man was accustomed to an abundance. But 
like a sensible woman she did not despair. Every- 



THE USE AND ABUSE OF FOOD. 55 

thing on and about her table was clean and neat, 
but there were to eat and drink only good biscuits, 
pure honey, good water, and hot tea. The gentle- 
man ate and ate, and enjoyed himself. It is not al- 
ways the amount or variety of food which makes 
an enjoyable meal; it is more the way the food is 
cooked and served. 

For Recitation. 

1. What is the principal use of food ? To make blood. 

2. Could you grow without food ? No, our bodies would shrink 
and dry up. 

3. What if you should be starving, and should break your arm 
or leg ? My blood would be so poor that the bones would not 
readily unite. 

4. For what is 2n appetite given you ? To cause me to like food, 
and eat enough to grow and develop — in fact, to live. 

5. How can you spoil your appetite ? By eating largely of rich 
or sweet things. 

6. Should candy be eaten ? Sometimes, but not to take the 
place of bread, meat, and vegetables. 

7. Should you eat what you know disagrees with you ? No ; for, 
though it is pleasant to the taste, it may cause me pain and illness. 

8. What effect has proper food ? It gives color to the cheeks, 
brightness to the eyes, and strength to the body. 

9. Will improper food do this ? No, it weakens one and makes 
him ill. 

10. How can you learn to relish foods which are good for you 
and which you now dislike ? By eating them at first in small 
amount, and gradually increasing the quantity. 




LESSON VI. 

How Food becomes Blood. 

f UPPOSING we have healthy appe- 
tites, and use them well, how does 
the food do our bodies good, and 
how is it changed into blood ? When 
the food is taken into the mouth, 
the first thing we do, or ought to 
do, is to chew it. Strange as you 
may think it, there are people, children and grown 
folk alike, who seem never to have learned how to 
chew ; and, because they don't chew their food, it 
goes down in lumps into the tender stomach and 
causes stomach-ache, and sometimes vomiting, with 
other and worse troubles. 

2. If we don't chew our food, the teeth, whose 
duty it is to chew, are likely to become soft and to 
decay. If we want hard, sound teeth, we must use 
them. When puppies are fed on sweets and soft, 
dainty food, their teeth soften and are of very little 
use, and the puppies are not bright and active. But 
when fed at first on milk, then on firm food, and 
finally given bones to gnaw, the teeth become hard 
and sound, and the animals are in good condition. 



HOW FOOD BECOMES BLOOD. 



57 



3. Again, if we don't chew, we 
out enough juice — that is, saliva or 
the bags or glands which 
open into the mouth. This 
juice helps to soften the food 
and to change some of it — 
that is, the starch found in 
potatoes, corn-starch, etc. — 



don't squeeze 
spittle — from 




into a sort of sugar. It must be so changed before 
it can go into the blood. In fact, the mouth, with its 
teeth and glands, is the mill or grinding-place, where 
the food is made smaller and prepared to go into the 
rest of the factory to be further changed, so that the 
teeth should be in good condition, and the saliva 
should not be wasted by useless spitting, such as the 
use of chewing-gum induces. 

4. Babies seldom have teeth at birth. They don't 
need them, because their only food is, or ought to be, 
milk. In a few months, pretty little white teeth begin 
to show themselves in the mouth, one after another ; 
and, when the child is two or two and a half years 



58 HEALTH LESSONS. 

old, there should be twenty teeth. These are called 
baby-teeth and milk-teeth, because they begin to come 
in babyhood. Gradually these first teeth fall out, and 
the second teeth, thirty-two in number, which are to 
do duty for the rest of life, push themselves out from 
their beds in the jaws, where they have been resting 
all along. They then take the place of the first 
teeth, and begin to work and to grow strong if we 
take care of them. 

5. The way to take care of our teeth is to use 
them ; to pick out particles from between the teeth 
by the aid of quill or wooden tooth-picks, and not 
with pins, needles, or knife-blades ; and to keep them 
clean by rinsing out the mouth frequently with pure 
water, by brushing them night and morning with a 
fairly stiff brush and water, or good soap and water, 
or prepared chalk from the druggist's. In most 
class-rooms, if the teacher were to ask how many 
children brush the teeth once a day, quite a number 
of hands would be held up ; how many twice a day, 
fewer hands would be held up ; and I am afraid that 
there would be some children who would have to 
own to never brushing their teeth. 

6. After the food is ground up and softened, it 
is ready to pass down into the body through the 
throat into the " red lane " — that is, the gullet or food- 
pipe — which leads to the stomach. The throat, which 
begins at the back of the mouth, is in shape some- 
thing like a funnel, but surrounding it are muscles 
which are to help the food down-hill, at first letting 



HOW FOOD BECOMES BLOOD. 



59 



it go slowly and then fast, when it is safely on its 
way. You can see the throat and the little curtain 
which hangs down in front of it and toward the 
back part of the tongue, by looking into your open 
mouth through a looking-glass. 

7. Draw in your breath strongly, and at the same 
time place your right fore-finger on the tongue, with 
the tip of the finger far back, and you will readily see 
the throat. If you learn to do this easily w^hen well, 
you will not need to have a spoon to hold down the 
tongue when your throat is sore. Above and behind 
the soft palate, or the hanging curtain, where you 
can not see them, are two openings into the back part 
of the nose. If we eat or drink too fast, especially 
while laughing hard, the food or drink " goes the 
wrong way," either up into the nose through the two 
openings or down into the tube which leads to the 
lungs, in which case we cough and splutter or choke. 

8. The toad swallows without chewing, but we 
are not toads. The cow chews her food or cud, but 
only after the food has been hastily swallowed, has 
gone through two stomachs, and has been thrown up 
into the mouth. We can not eat in that way. Drink 
will do us most good when thirsty if we quietly sip it, 
not gulp it down. Some people, who think the man- 
ner of eating is not of any consequence, hurry through 
their meals, and bolt their food, and guzzle their 
drink. Such conduct always reminds me of the sea- 
lions in Central Park. They raise their heads, open 
their mouths, and catch the whole fishes the keeper 



60 HEALTH LESSONS. 

throws to them. Down the fish go into their stom- 
achs with one gulp. 

9. The gullet, or oesophagus, which leads from the 
throat to the stomach, is very smooth inside, and is 
surrounded by muscles, which squeeze food and drink 
along into the stomach, even if the person swallow- 
ing is standing on his head. After the food once 
gets fairly into the gullet, we can not generally stop 
its going down into the stomach. 

10. And what is the stomach like? Some children 
have thought it was like the gizzard of the chicken, 
rough and hard, to grind the food. Others think it is 
like a bag of some sort into which can be put at any 
time, in any way, meat, gravy, potatoes, bread, candy, 
and fruit, which will take care of themselves. Yes, 
it is something like a bag in shape, but it is beauti- 
fully soft inside, soft as velvet, and has muscles out- 
side to keep it moving when not empty. 

11. Whenever there is food in the bag, it is 
squeezed by the muscles from side to side, and end 
to end, until the food is all churned together. At 
the same time a sour juice is poured into the stomach 
from glands or little bags in the walls of the stomach, 
which helps to soften and change the food still more. 
Then some of the soft food, like very thin gruel, 
passes through the walls of the stomach out into 
many little tubes, called lacteals, because when filled 
with the fluid they look white, like milk. 

12. These tubes carry it into larger tubes, called 
veins, when it becomes a part of the blood, and is 



HOW FOOD BECOMES BLOOD. 6 1 

emptied by the veins into the heart. The rest of the 
food is pushed out at the lower end of the stomach 
into the small intestine — that is, if the little round 
curtain, called the gate-keeper, at that end of the 
stomach, will allow it to pass. This gate-keeper 
doesn't like to let hard things pass by it, so there is 
often a struggle between the stomach and its gate- 
keeper, the stomach trying to squeeze out the hard 
lumps so that its owner won't have the stomach- 
ache, and the gate-Keeper trying to hold them back, 
so that they won't go into the small intestine, and 
cause pain there. 

13. You see, the stomach, like the throat and the 
gullet, don't like to have to work with hard food 
and big mouthfuls, and neither should they, for it is 
the duty of the tongue and teeth, and cheeks and 
saliva, first to break the food up and make small 
mouthfuls of it. The stomach must also be kept deli- 
cate and warm, if it is going to be able to churn all 
the food that is put into it, and to squeeze it all out 
when necessary. It is well, therefore, to wear warm 
clothing over the part of the body where the stom- 
ach is. 

14. If we drink ice-water frequently, or if we gulp 
it instead of sipping it, we are very likely to cool the 
stomach so much that it is numbed, and can't move 
quickly. Then stomach-ache and suffering follow. 
If we get into the habit of using mustard, horse- 
radish, and strong sauces, but especially the strong 
drinks I told you of, the stomach becomes hardened, 



62 HEALTH LESSONS. 

and in the case of habitual drunkards, thickened like 
a leather bag, " a good stomach to hold alcohol, but 
a poor one to digest food/' The stomach, like all 
parts of the body, also needs rest. If we eat between 
our meals, whenever we fancy we are hungry, we 
may overload the stomach and cause pain, vomiting, 
gas, and diarrhoea. 

15. Where does the food go that passes out of the 
stomach ? Into the small intestine. This intestine is 
a tube about five times the length of your body, is 
very soft inside, and is surrounded by muscles. Into 
it juices come from little glands in its own walls, and 
also from the liver and the pancreas, two organs near 
the stomach. These juices, the intestinal juice, bile, 
and pancreatic juice break up the food in the intestine, 
and so change it that it becomes liquid, looks like 
milk, and is called chyle. By the movements of the 
intestine, the chyle is squeezed out of its walls into 
lacteals and little veins, and some of it is carried 
through the liver to the heart, and some reaches the 
heart in another way. 

16. So you see, if everything has been done as it 
should be, our food has been chewed in the mouth, 
rolled into wads or balls, softened by the saliva, and 
part of its starch changed into sugar, then swal- 
lowed, churned in the stomach, still further softened, 
and partly changed, while some of the water and the 
salts in our food — that is, common salt and other 
kinds — have passed by little vessels into the blood. 
Then the pulpy mass passes the gate-keeper and goes 



HOW FOOD BECOMES BLOOD. 63 

into the small intestine, where most of the food is 
made very soft, and most of it is ready to become 
blood. After the food has passed through the walls 
of the stomach and the small intestine, exactly in 
what part of the body it becomes blood we do not 
know — we do know that when it has reached the 
heart it is blood, and is carried to all parts of the 
body — the sugars, fats, and starches giving us most 
of our fat and warmth, and the other kinds of food 
giving us most of our strength. 

17. The artist has here drawn for me a sort of 
puzzle by which you can see what becomes of the 
food. The little black squares represent bread, 
potatoes, and food which contain starch ; the cir- 
cles, meat of various kinds, and similar food-sub- 
stances ; the crosses, water and salts. You see how 
they are all jumbled together in the stomach, and 
how they grow smaller as they enter the small in- 
testine or pass out of the stomach. You see how 
some of them get into the blood and then into the 
heart, directly by the lacteals, and how others have 
to go through the liver first. Once in the blood, 
their distinctive shape is lost. As blood they go 
through the lungs to be purified, and then into an 
arm (but in the same way the blood goes to the head 
and all parts of the body) and back again, its waste 
material to be thrown out of the body by the kidneys 
or other channels. 

18. What becomes of the material, such as the 
skins of apples, the seeds of berries, and the stringy 



6 4 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



gullet 

° or 

food-tube 




HOW FOOD BECOMES BLOOD. 65 

parts of oranges, etc., that doesn't change into blood? 
The gate-keeper allows them to pass, because, al- 
though they can't well be broken up and softened to 
make blood, they are of service at times. If not in 
too large a quantity, they excite the intestines to 
move, and so hurry on the blood-making process, 
and at the same time get rid oi dead material which 
passes into the large intestine. 

19. This large intestine is like a sewer in a city, 
carrying off things, which, if allowed to remain, will 
sour and decay, and cause ill health. So you see 
the importance of keeping this sewer of ours clean. 
In cities, when sewers do not carry off the refuse 
readily, the authorities at times pump quantities of 
water into them, to " flush " them, as it is called. 
How much better it is for us to eat the right kind of 
food and drink good water and milk, instead of con- 
stantly having to take castor-oil, salts, or senna, or 
some other medicine, which often tends to injure the 
health ! 

20. Wine, beer, and all such liquors, are very apt 
to hinder the stomach and intestines from moving as 
they should, and prevent the softening and changing 
of the food into material for blood ; and people who 
drink much of them think that they must use much 
opening and cleansing medicines, and thus add dan- 
ger to danger, and misery to misery, and shorten 
their lives for the sake of pleasing their appetites. 



66 HEALTH LESSONS. 

For Recitation. 

1. Why is it important to chew food ? Because chewing breaks 
the food up so that it can be easily swallowed, and it also keeps the 
teeth strong. 

2. What softens hard particles of food while we are chewing 
them ? The saliva or spittle. 

3. How many sets of teeth are there for each person, and how 
many teeth in each set ? Two sets — the first has twenty teeth ; the 
second thirty-two teeth. 

4. Why is it well to chew and to swallow food slowly ? Because, 
if we act in this way, our food will most easily turn into blood, and 
we will not be likely to eat too much. 

5. Why should we not drink much ice-water? Because it will 
make the stomach cold, and prevent it from moving promptly when 
food goes into it. 

6. Why do the parts of the body that digest food move when 
food is in them ? To thoroughly mix the food with digestive juices. 

7. What will interfere with this important work ? Tight cloth- 
ing about the waist and over the stomach, and drinking much ice- 
water or alcoholic drinks. 

8. What becomes of the food in the stomach and small intes- 
tine ? It is changed into a white fluid called chyle, and passes into 
the blood, of which it becomes a part. 

9. Of what particular value are the different articles of food ? 
The sugars, fats, and starches give us most of our fat and warmth, 
and the other kinds of food most of our strength. 

10. Of what use are the coarser parts of food ? They excite the 
intestines to move. 




LESSON VII. 

What to Eat. 

ORE than one bright little girl is 
asking by this time, " Well, if it is 
so important to eat right things in 
order to have good blood, I should 
like to know what there is in the 
world to eat." A good many things, 
my dear. Probably at some time or 

other almost every kind of animal and plant has been 

used as food. 

2. People have managed to live on grass, leaves, 
and the twigs of trees, and when driven by famine 
have been compelled to eat the leather from their 
shoes. It is well to know that we can live on such 
things for a short time until relief comes to us, though 
we don't want to have to do it. It is also well to 
know that we really need but very little food to keep 
us alive and well, much less than most of us eat. 

3. Food is generally spoken of as animal food, 
vegetable food, condiments, and drinks. Animal food 
includes the flesh — that is, the muscles or lean meat of 
birds, fish, and four-footed beasts, together with the 



68 HEALTH LESSONS. 

fat and blood-vessels found among or about the parti- 
cles of meat. It includes also eggs and milk, and 
some of the inner parts of animals, such as parts of the 
stomach, liver, and kidneys. " But," you say, " milk 
is something to drink." Yes, that i» so, and a very 
important drink it is, but it is also a very important 
food, especially for children. People sometimes say 
that a baby had only a sup of milk, just as if milk was 
not enough food for most babies ! So good a food is it 
that grown-up folk have lived on it for many days. 

4. I trust you will all have plenty of good sweet 
milk to drink, and that when you grow up you 
will do all you can to prevent people from putting 
water in the milk they sell, or from selling milk that 
is not sweet and pure. It is best to drink the milk 
slowly. Once in a while we meet with children 
who don't like milk, or who say they don't. Let 
them try hot milk poured over little pieces of bread, 
and seasoned with salt and pepper ; or a light cup- 
custard, or begin with a wineglassful of milk, and 
increase the quantity gradually day by day until they 
can drink a tumblerful. 

5. Eggs. — Many children like eggs, but some do 
not. Some like to eat them hard-boiled, but eggs 
cooked in this way often disagree, and so give them 
stomach-ache. It is a great deal better to eat eggs 
soft-boiled or scrambled, or made into omelets. If 
you do eat a hard-boiled egg, eat some bread with it, 
and chew it well, so that the stomach will not feel 
bad from having hard lumps put into it. Because an 



WHAT TO EAT. 



6 9 



egg is not a very large thing, I have known people 
to eat several of them at a meal, and every day for 
days together, until the liver and stomach grew so 
tired of trying to change them into blood that the 
machinery got 6ut of order and the eaters became 
sick. Not more than two or three eggs at one meal 
should be eaten by any child. 

6. Meat. — Most children like meat, and very often 
they eat too much. It is safe to say that it is best 
for you not to eat it oftener than once a day, and 
then at midday, if you can, or once in every other 
day, is often enough in summer. Every kind of meat 
needs to be well chewed. Men and women, and 
large boys and girls, who do hard work require more 
meat than children. But with the lean of meat a 
little fat should be eaten. Now, I can see some of 
you turn up your noses at the idea of fat. This 
shows that you don't know that meat which does not 
have streaks of fat through it is tough meat, hard to 
chew, does not taste as really good meat should, and 
is hard for the stomach to digest. 

7. A little piece of tender lean meat (i. e., lean 
with a little fat) is better for most of us than a large 
piece of lean meat with little or no fat. Jack Spratt 
was very foolish to eat all the lean, and his wife to 
eat all the fat. How much better it would have been 
for both of them to eat some fat and some lean ! 
Children who don't eat fat are very likely to suffer 
more from the cold, to catch cold more easily, and 
to be more readily exhausted than those who do. 



7o 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



8. Butter, though it is fat, and probably gives more 
warmth than strength to the body, is an animal food. 
It is not necessary to hold buttercups or dandelions 
under your chins to find whether you like butter or 
not, for most of you do. But for some families but- 
ter is too expensive, and can not be used frequently ; 
and it is in such families especially that other kinds 
of fat should be eaten. Because good butter does 
taste good, people are likely to eat too much, and 
thus to make the blood too rich, and so they have 
spots or pimples upon the skin, and lose some of their 
strength. 

9. Though most of you like lean meat and butter, 
very many don't like soups and broths. Yet these 
have in them the juices of the meat, with some fat 
and some rice or barley. Such food is very good for 
you. American children do not eat enough soups 
and broths, which are healthy and cheap, but Ger- 
man and French parents well know how useful such 
food is for their children. 

10. Vegetable Food includes every part of any plant 
that can be used as food — roots, such as potatoes and 
turnips ; stems, such as celery ; leaves, as spinach and 
lettuce ; fruit, as apples and oranges ; nuts, as hickory 
nuts and walnuts. The most important food of the 
vegetable kind is grain — that is, the product of the 
wheat, oat, rice, and barley plants, and others of that 
kind. Food from the grains is the most important of 
all the vegetable foods, because of them flour is made, 
and of the flour bread is made. Some are crushed 



WHAT TO EAT 71 

into " grits/' or ground into meal, so we have 
wheaten-grits, oatmeal, or flour, corn and rye meal, 
or, if the meal is very fine, wheat and rye flour. Too 
many of us in America use only white wheat-bread, 
and do not touch rye, which sometimes has cara- 
way-seeds in it, nor brown or Graham bread, nor 
bread made with oatmeal. 

11. Bread is so leaned upon to keep people alive 
that it is called the " staff of life." Butter goes so 
well with bread that some one has called it the golden 
head of the staff. Some bread should be eaten at 
each meal, not only because it is a good food, but 
because chewing the crusts helps to keep our teeth 
in good condition. Then, too, if we eat bread we 
don't eat so much of other things that our stomachs 
don't like so well; and, moreover, bread entangles it- 
self with the small seeds of fruit we may eat, and of- 
ten prevents them from doing harm. 

12. I did not tell you, when talking of the small in- 
testine, that close by where it empties into the large 
intestine is a little tube, about an inch and a half long, 
which opens into the large intestine also. What this 
is for, no one seems to know. It is known, however, 
that if people eat a large quantity of fruit with small 
seeds, unless these seeds are mixed up with bread 
or other food, they are likely to get into this little 
tube, and, because they can not get out, the parts 
grow sore, and persons have been known to die in 
consequence. 

13. Among the vegetables used as food you all 



72 HEALTH LESSONS. 

know what the white potatoes are, sometimes called 
Irish potatoes, because in Ireland they are used very 
largely, being easy to raise. Some of you know very 
little of any other kind of vegetable. And if you do, 
very few of you like carrots, cabbage, greens, lettuce, 
squash, string and Lima beans. You do like sweet- 
potatoes and corn and radishes. Probably you eat 
more of these than your stomach will take care of, 
but you turn up your noses at carrots, and think them 
fit only for cows to eat. You don't consider that God 
has put a variety of vegetables into the world so that 
we may have many to choose from, and are not com- 
pelled to live only on potatoes. 

14. You may not know that the green vegetables, 
such as onions, lettuce, greens, water-cress, and celery, 
are especially good for us in the spring, when, after 
the richer food of the winter, our blood needs certain 
juices found in these vegetables and in fresh fruit. In 
old times most people thought it was necessary to 
take, especially in the spring and fall of each year, 
sulphur and molasses, or some such medicine, " to 
clear the blood. " Such medicines are used now-a- 
days by some people. Surely, the eating of fruit and 
green vegetables is an easier and a pleasanter way of 
clearing the blood. In the market-scene before you 
the artist represents twenty-six different kinds of vege- 
tables. Try to point them out. There are onions, egg- 
plants, artichokes, tomatoes, peppers, sweet-potatoes, 
white potatoes, squashes, celery, small round radishes, 
sugar-beets, asparagus, kohl-rabi, turnip-radishes, cu- 



74 HEALTH LESSONS. 

cumbers, pie-plant, cauliflower, pumpkins, leeks, pars- 
nips, turnips, peas, okra, corn, beans, and cabbage. 

15. Good, ripe fruit, especially eaten at breakfast- 
time, and never in too large a quantity, is valu- 
able. Dried fruit, raisins, figs, etc., can not be eaten 
frequently with safety unless they are thoroughly 
chewed and eaten with bread. Nuts should be spar- 
ingly eaten, especially the rich ones, such as butter- 
nuts, Brazil-nuts, and walnuts. Doctors see a good 
many children who are suffering from stomach-ache, 
due to green apples or other unripe fruit, and from 
sickness caused by eating too many nuts. These 
children don't like the medicine that has to be given, 
but they will eat things that don't agree with them. 
They might have health and comfort if they would 
only learn to be T-E-M-P-E-R-A-T-E. 

16. Now, what are condiments? Salt, pepper, mus- 
tard, vinegar, sauces, and such things. Salt is an 
important seasoning for food, and some of you know 
that if it is not put into the water in which potatoes 
are boiled the potatoes have a very flat taste, and if 
it is left out of bread the bread is not good. Salt 
should be used with most of the food we eat, but the 
same is not true of pepper, mustard, etc. Pepper you 
can use sparingly on eggs and meat and some vegeta- 
bles, and vinegar with a few, though lemon-juice is 
better for you than the poor vinegar that is some- 
times used. The child or grown person who can't 
eat meat without mustard or horse-radish is to be 
pitied. The best of all condiments is a good, healthy 



WHAT TO EAT 73 

appetite, and the boys who work in the open air as 
farmers' boys do generally have good appetites. 

17. But this is the very thing that people don't 
have who live on too much or too rich food, or who 
drink strong drinks, or who stay in-doors most of 
their lives. The glutton, the drunkard, and the slug- 
gard often eat mustard and catsups in large quantity 
in order to get things to taste good to them, thus 
damaging the stomach. It is better for us and 
our stomachs to flavor food with leek, sage, thyme, 
summer-savory, sweet marjoram, mint, parsley, fen- 
nel, and other sweet and savory herbs which can be 
raised in a little kitchen-garden by any of you. In 
these little gardens you not only can see how the 
plants grow, but you can help to raise food, or what 
will make you relish plain vegetable and animal food. 
The strong seasonings, mustard, catsups, etc., help to 
create unhealthy appetites for strong drinks and for 
the use of tobacco. 

18. Drinks. — There is no drink like good water. 
When we are thirsty it satisfies us even better than 
milk, certainly better than lemonade, ginger-ale, and 
lemon-pop, or ale, beer, or strong drinks, or, indeed, 
any other liquid that can be found. I suppose the 
reason that it does relieve thirst so promptly is be- 
cause water is a part of every portion of the body, 
bones, skin, muscles, blood, and all. Just as soon as 
it is swallowed it is ready to go into the blood, 
through the stomach and small intestine ; in fact, it 
hurries into the blood and so goes to every part of 



76 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



the body, for when we are thirsty every part of 
body is thirsty 
and needs the 
water. — 

19. Good as 
milk is, both 
for drink and 
food, it must 
have considerable time 
for digestion, and as to 
lemonade and such drinks 
they can not take the place of water, 
and they often do harm by being taken 
ice-cold, and too frequently, or in too 
large quantity. When a soldier is 
tired from marching, and dirty from 
the clouds of dust which 
arise when an army is 



the 





WHAT TO EAT. 



77 



moving, or when he is weak and faint after a hard 
fight, how delightful the water tastes which a friend 
gives to him from his canteen ! How the old and the 
young hasten to drink from the fountains in our cities 
arranged for the use of thirsty men and beasts ! On 
a hot day how pleasant it is to see the cool water that 
bubbles up and out of the spring by the road-side or 
in the meadow ! 

20. But there is such a thing as impure or bad 
drinking-water. You always run a great risk of be- 




ing made sick 

if you suck pieces of ice 

which have come from dirty 

water, if you drink water from 

any pool, cistern, or well within thirty 

feet of a pig-pen, vault, or any other 

foul spot, especially if the foul place be on higher 

ground, if you drink water cooled with ice kept in a 

box which is connected with a sewer, or if you drink 

water from any stream which has dead animals or 

plants in it, or into which flows refuse from factories, 

stables, and the like. Whenever you have reason 



;8 HEALTH LESSONS. 

to fear that your drinking-water may be impure, filter 
it, if it is impossible to obtain better drinking-water. 
And what is a filter ? Something to strain dirty and 
impure water through to make it fit for drinking. 
But a filter may do harm if it is not thoroughly 
cleaned after each time it is used, for the dirt and 
impurities retained in the charcoal, wire, cloth, or 
other substance of which the filter is made, become 
more and more poisonous the longer they remain 
there, and the more frequently the filter is used. A 
cheap filter can be made of a flower-pot, with some 
pebbles in the bottom, over this some clean white 
sand, and over this powdered charcoal, but the char- 
coal should be frequently changed. 

21. Now that I have told you about water and 
milk, there are very few other drinks which children 
should use. The only things you should drink, un- 
less your own doctor says otherwise, are water, milk, 
and cocoa. Tea and coffee you are better without, 
and all liquors like whisky and beer you should 
avoid. They destroy the appetite for wholesome 
food, ruin the health, and make a gentle person cross 
and dangerous, a clean person dirty, and a loving 
person neglect his family and friends. They are 
called strong drinks, and so strong are they that if 
you get into the habit of using them they will surely 
make very weak and miserable persons of you, be- 
sides making your friends grieve for you because 
you have become slaves. Water and milk never do any 
of these things. 



WHAT TO EAT 79 

22. Before leaving the subject of food let me ask 
you some questions in arithmetic, which it will be 
well for vou to solve and to remember all your lives : 

"If a family spends fifteen cents a day for beer, 
how much is expended in four weeks? How many 
loaves of bread could be bought for the same money ?" 

" If a man spends twenty cents a day for whisky 
and twenty-five cents for cigars, how much will both 
cost him in twelve years? How many acres of land, 
at forty dollars per acre, could he have purchased 
with the money ? " 

" At forty cents a gallon, what is a family's beer 
bill for sixty days, taking two quarts daily ? How 
many pairs of shoes, at two dollars a pair, will this 
money purchase ? M 

A man, seventy years of age, was sent to the 
poor-house because he was a drunkard and a vagrant. 
If he had saved the money he spent for liquor since 
he was twenty-one years of age— that is, an average 
per year of fifty dollars — how much would he have 
had to live comfortably upon when an old man ? 

For Recitation. 

1. What classes or kinds of food are there? Animal, vegetable, 
condiments, and drinks. 

2. What is the most important animal food for children ? 
Milk. 

3. What should you particularly remember as to meat ? That 
children need less of it than grown people do, and that it should be 
chewed very thoroughly. 

6 



go HEALTH LESSONS. 

4. Why is fat in food necessary ? Because it helps very much 
to keep up the warmth of the body, and assists other kinds of food 
to readily turn into blood. 

5. What foods should be used more than they are ? Soups and 
broths. 

6. Why is it well to occasionally eat other bread than white 
bread ? Because we are not likely then to tire of bread. Some 
bread should be eaten at each meal. 

7. Is it wise to learn to eat vegetables, especially the green vege- 
tables ? Yes, for vegetables furnish certain juices and salts which 
the blood needs. 

8. What should all of us remember when eating the food we 
like ? To be teviperate in its use, and not to become slaves to our 
appetites. 

9. Why is water the best drink that there is ? Because it 
quenches thirst best, and very rapidly goes from the stomach into 
the blood. Besides this, every part of the body needs water. 

10. What should you not drink? Drinks that contain alcohol. 




LESSON VIII. 
M^ear and Repair. 

LOTHES will not last forever. You 
all know that, after you have worn 
W~ them a long time, there will proba- 
bly be holes in them, or they will 
become threadbare, so that they 
must be mended or patched — 
that is, repaired. If you handle 
your dolls much, the color comes 
off the cheeks, and the hair may fall off, for often it 
is only glued on. To put color again on the cheeks 
and hair on the head is to mend, or repair. Every 
part of our bodies, as we have seen, is constantly 
wearing out by use, and is all the time in process of 
repair by the wonderful blood, so long as the machin- 
ery is working, and that is, so long as we are alive. 

2. You already know, too, that to have the right 
kind of blood to do this, you must eat the right food, 
at the right time, and in the right way. Thin, watery 
blood made from poor food does not furnish enough 
good material to make strong flesh and bones, beau- 
tiful skin, and hair. Food that is too rich makes the 



g 2 HEALTH LESSONS. 

blood too rich, and such blood helps to roughen the 
skin and to make muscles softer than they should be. 
The right kind of blood, besides giving strength, car- 
ries heat, and helps to give warmth and motion to 
every part of the body ; and, the more and the faster 
it goes into a part, the warmer the part grows. 

3. This is the reason why, when our ears are very 
cold, in danger perhaps of being bitten by Jack Frost, 
or our feet are damp and cold, we rub them hard to 
make the blood come into them. In cold weather 
you have seen car-drivers, coachmen, sailors, and 
others, beat their chests or their hands, to keep them 
warm ; and you have seen babies cry so hard that 
their faces would become very red and their skin 
very hot, so hot that the sweat, or perspiration, would 
pour out. It is the motion, or exercise of the parts, 
that makes the blood go into them faster than before, 
and it is the blood that makes the parts warm. 

4. You think this is a wonderful sort of thing — 
we call it fluid — that goes into every part of the 
body, and can be sent in larger quantity than it gen- 
erally goes by means of motion, or exercise. Yes, 
it is. You can not prick deeply any part of the body 
except the teeth, hair, and nails, without letting out 
a drop or more of blood. Each drop has floating in 
it about three thousand (3,000) little rounded bodies 
called blood-cells. Most of these blood-cells are red, 
and may be called little boats, which carry the food 
and pure air, I have told you about, to the various 
parts of the body. There are so many of these little 



WEAR AND REPAIR. 



83 



boat-like cells that when even a little blood falls on a 
light-colored article, such as a handkerchief, it stains 
a large spot red. If you remember this, you will not 
be easily frightened when you see such a stain. 

5. The blood does not lie loosely in the skin, and 
under it, in the fat, muscles, bones, etc., but goes to 
every part of the body in soft but strong vessels, 
pipes, or tubes. When you prick any part and let 
out the blood, you make a hole into a very small 
blood-vessel, so small that you could not see it with- 
out a very powerful magnifying glass. These very 
small blood-vessels 

are called capillaries, 
or hair -like tubes, 
and are arranged in 
the various parts, in 
different ways. Here 
is a picture which 
shows, largely mag- 
nified, some of the 
capillaries in the 
eye, with a few of 
the larger blood-ves- 
sels. 

6. The vessels 

that are under the skin, between the muscles and 
bones, and deep down in the body, are much larger, 
and their walls are much thicker, so that they don't 
easily burst, as the blood is pumped into them when 
in health, as water sometimes bursts rubber hose 




84 HEALTH LESSONS. 

when the fire-engine pumps the water into it very 
fast. But there is a time when they may burst, and 
that is when they have become softened by over-use 
of the brain, or by our living on too rich food, and 
especially if with such food alcoholic drinks are used. 
If a blood-vessel bursts in the brain, the person may 
become unconscious (i. e., doesn't know anything that 
is going on about him), or he may die. This burst- 
ing of a blood-vessel in the brain is called apoplexy. 

7. There are two kinds of large blood-vessels, the 
arteries and the veins. Arteries carry the red or pure 
blood from the pump or heart to all parts of the 
body, and there connect with one end of the capil- 
laries. The veins connect with the other end of the 
capillaries, like one tunnel with another, and convey 
the blue or impure blood from the parts to the heart. 
Because the blood starts from the heart, goes to all 
parts of the body, and then comes back to the heart, 
these movements are spoken of as the circulation. 
The vessels that carry the blood through the parts 
are the capillaries. 

8. The blood moving in these vessels carries nour- 
ishment to the parts at the same time it receives into 
itself, through the walls of the capillaries, very small 
pieces of worn-out material from the parts through 
which it flows. This refuse is carried by the blood- 
current into the veins, and by them to doors or open- 
ings in the skin, kidneys, and other organs, and there 
are thrown out of the body. Here is a picture which 
shows the arteries in red and the veins in blue. You 



WEAR AND REPAIR. 85 

see how near these two kinds of blood-vessels are to 
one another, and you notice how the arteries begin at 
the heart as large tubes, and grow smaller and smaller 
as they approach the capillaries. Veins are the blue 
lines, which you see on the back of your hand, or on 
the temples of any one who has a thin skin. They 
begin as small tubes at the capillaries, and become 
larger and larger as they approach the heart. In 
the picture are only a few capillaries ; it is impossible 
to show many of them in such a small picture. 

9. Sometimes the blood carries so much food to a 
part that it can not use it all. Nature provides for 
this condition of things, and has put into our bodies 
hundreds of little vessels, which empty finally into 
large veins, but are not blood-vessels. These are 
called lymphatics (carriers of lymph), and convey to 
the heart and then to the lungs, where it is purified, 
the excess of food referred to. There are so many 
lymphatics, and their walls are so thin, that some- 
times poisons are readily taken in by them from the 
skin, mouth, and other parts, and carried into the 
blood, and so poison the body. 

10. The heart we have left till the last, though it 
is the most important part of the machinery. Its 
duty is to send around the body the five or six quarts 
of blood that is in the body at any one time. It is the 
powerful pump that starts the blood on its rounds. 
If it stops moving or beating, as we call it, the blood 
stops flowing, we stop breathing and die, just as in 
the watch, if the wheels stop moving, the hands stop, 



86 HEALTH LESSONS. 

and the watch dies, until it is wound up again. If 
the heart stops moving for more than a few minutes, 
no doctor can set it going again. 

ii. Most of you know that your heart is in the 
left side of the chest. You know it because, when 
you have run fast up-stairs, or in a game out-of-doors, 
you breathe fast, and something thumps away in the 
chest at the ribs, as if it must get out. That is your 
heart. I say most of you know where your heart is, 
because I have met with people who did not know. 

12. If you put your ear against the chest of a 
healthy baby, or your dog or cat, you will hear the 
heart beat with the same time between the beats, 
like the ticking of a clock. It is not so with the per- 
son who smokes a good deal, or is a drunkard, or is 
ill, or who lives on too rich food, and does not work 
hard enough. The heart of such a person does not 
work regularly and beautifully. It is disturbed and 
anxious ; and if the heart is out of order, the whole 
body is out of order, for all parts of the body are then 
not supplied with food as frequently and regularly as 
they should be by the little red blood life-boats. 

13. When we listen to a baby's heart, and then to 
a grown person's, we find that the baby's heart beats 
much faster than the other, and if we feel the pulse, 
as the doctor does, that is, put a finger lightly on an 
artery as it passes along the front of the wrist, or in 
the upper lip, or on the side of the head in the tem- 
ple, we will find that the beat here shows the same 
thing. The heart, as it beats or throbs, sends out the 



WEAR AND REPAIR. 



37 



blood from it into the arteries in jet after jet, and, 
as the blood moves along in the arteries, it moves 
in waves. These waves form the pulse. When the 
blood reaches the capillaries, it gently oozes out of 
their walls to bathe the parts in the good food for 
which they are hungry. 

14. The heart-beats are caused by the walls of the 
heart squeezing the blood from two rooms in it into 
two other rooms, and from these two rooms into the 
arteries and into the lungs. The heart works night 
and day, catching a little rest here and there between 
the beats, which are over one million in each twenty- 
four hours. Just think of the work it does ! What 
a faithful servant and friend it is, ever working for 
us in sickness and in health, by night and by day, 
when we are sad and when we are happy, and lasting 
us many years, if we don't work or play too hard, if 
we don't worry too much, if we don't tire the heart 
out by making it go too fast through drinking alco- 
holic liquors, or make it unsteady by tobacco smok- 
ing ! It is said that 

a railway - engine, 
strong as it is, sel- 
dom lasts more than 
twelve years. 

15. What is the 
heart like inside ? 
Let us see. Sup- 
pose you take a make-believe heart, or a valentine 
heart — that is, such a heart as some of you draw 




88 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



on your home-made valentines. Cut it down through 
the middle. Now, divide it into four rooms, thus. 
The two rooms on the left side of the upright line are 
on the right side of the real heart — that is, toward the 
right side of the body ; and the two rooms on the right 
side of the upright line are in the left side of the real 
heart — that is, toward the left side of the body. But 
these rooms have openings in them for the blood to 
come in and to go out. The two upper rooms are 
smaller than the lower, and are called auricles, be- 
cause they were supposed, when named, to be shaped 
like little ears ; the two lower are called ventricles, be- 
cause they were supposed to be shaped like stomachs. 
16. Into the right auricle (R. A.), through two 
openings, the blue, impure blood flows from all parts 

of the body. When the room is 
about full, the muscle-walls close 
toward one another, and squeeze 
the blood through some little 
doors (called valves), which are 
at the same time pulled open 
from below by muscles, and the 
blood goes into the right ventri- 
cle (R. V.). When this is about 
full, its walls squeeze out the 
blood through one large opening into blood-vessels 
which carry it into the lungs, where it becomes red 
and pure, and returns to the heart and goes into the 
left auricle (L. A.). From that room it is squeezed as 
before, but now through little doors into the left ven- 




WEAR AND REPAIR. 



89 



tricle (L. V.), and from here squeezed out into the 
largest artery in the body, then into smaller ones, and 
so is sent to the capillaries. 

17. Thus the heart moves, that is beats, and so the 
blood is sent out from the left ventricle to the capil- 
laries, and returns through them to the veins and 
through the veins to the right auricle again. Here 
is a picture of the inside of a real heart. See if you 
can find out where the vessels, 

rooms, openings, and valves are. 
Better still if you will get the heart 
of a sheep or calf at the butcher- 
shop, and open it and see these 
things for yourself. 

18. You know now that the 
blood carries warmth and food to 
all parts of the body, and because 
it does these things it is often called 
the life-blood. But, in order to do 

these things well, and to carry off waste material to 
be thrown out of the body by the lungs, skin, kid- 
neys, and bowels, other helps are necessary besides 
a strong heart and blood-vessels, and good food and 
air, and these things are exercise, warmth, cleanliness, 
and a good overseer, who has his headquarters in the 
brain. All these things we will tell you about far- 
ther on, 




9° 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



For Recitation. 



i. What is there in our bodies which keeps all the parts sup- 
plied with nourishment ? The blood. 

2. What is blood? A red fluid which is made in the body from 
the food we eat. 

3. What does it do? It passes rapidly through the body to ev- 
ery part, carrying warmth and nourishment. 

4. How is it carried from one part of the body to the other ? By 
blood-vessels. 

5. What are these blood-vessels called ? Arteries, veins, and 
capillaries. 

6. How does it get into the blood-vessels ? From the heart. 

7. What is the heart ? A sort of bag made of muscles whose 
duty it is to send blood through the body. 

8. What is the pulse ? It is the movement of the arteries as the 
waves of blood go through them. 

9. Does it make any difference whether the blood in the body is 
good or bad ? Yes ; a very great difference. Good blood brings 
new material to every part of the body to take the place of that 
which is used up. Bad blood can not repair any part of the body as 
it should be repaired. 

10. What will make good blood ? Good food, a right use of our 
muscles, proper care of our skins, and the use of other means ne- 
cessary for health. 



LESSON IX. 




Warmth and Clothing. 

VERY part of the body in health is 
moving in some way or other, 
without our perceiving it, and 
warmth is necessary for all this 
motion. The boy who owns a 
printing-press knows that if the 
press is to work well and to move 
easily, the room in which it is 
must be warm enough to keep soft the oil used in 
various parts of the machine. The man who owns a 
trotting-horse knows, if the horse has not been driven 
for a few davs, that, when he is taken out for a drive, 
he must move about for a while before he gets 
" warmed up M to do easy, thorough, and graceful 
trotting. 

2. We know that our bodies are warm inside, be- 
cause if a thermometer, such as is used by doctors 
and nurses, is put into the mouth, the little column of 
mercury will rise in the tube until it points to about 
98^-° Fahr., showing that the body is a very warm sort 
of stove. If a thermometer outside in the open air, by 
the drug-store, or wherever you may look at it, points 



WARMTH AND CLOTHING. 



93 



to 8o°, you would say it is hot, and so it is ; and if it 
should go up to 90 or more, you would say, " Whew ! 
it's dreadfully hot ! " So the body inside might rather 
be called hot than just warm, but pleasantly warm 
outside on the skin, just as a stove very hot on the in- 
side may give gentle warmth to a room. Sometimes 
in a fever the body gets very hot and the mercury in 
the thermometer will point to over ioo°. 

3. We know that what comes out of the body is 
warm, as the breath and perspiration ; and if we cut 
ourselves so as to bleed, the blood is warm. On a 
cold day, when the air outside the body is colder than 
the air inside, the moist air in the breath we send out 
condenses by the cold, and we seem to be pouring 
out steam as a tea-kettle does, when the water in it is 
boiling. You notice this steaming most when ani- 
mals are carrying heavy loads in cold weather, for 
then the steam comes from all over the body. So it 
does probably with us, but our clothes hide it from 
our sight. We know that our skins are warm, for 
when we take off our under-clothes at night they are 
warm, even if we have been out in the cold. 

4. Now, it is well known that if anything cold 
touches anything warm, some of the warmth goes out 
of the warm thing into the cold one. If you touch a 
cold stone, some of the warmth goes out of you to the 
stone ; that becomes warmer and your hand colder, 
and we say the stone is cold. If a cold wind blows 
over us, it takes some of the heat from the skin, and 
drives some of it deep into the body. If it takes 



94 HEALTH LESSONS. 

away too much or drives too much in, we are likely 
to have a sore throat, or be sick in some other way. 
So you see how important it is to keep our bodies 
warm enough ; and this we are to do principally by 
proper food, clothing, bathing, and exercise. 

5. If I should ask some of you, who had not studied 
about health, what clothing is worn for, you would 
say, " To make us look pretty," and it is a good thing 
to look pretty, but it is better to be comfortable. If 
you can be both comfortable and pretty, that is best 
of all. So with clothing, comfort or use is the first 
consideration, and beauty the second. The use is to 
keep our bodies warm by keeping the natural warmth 
in, as well as by giving us additional warmth, and to 
protect our bodies from dirt, and disagreeable or 
hurtful things which may harm us. As far as possi- 
ble the clothes meant for comfort should be those 
near the skin and those which are worn most. Those 
for beauty, mainly for other people to look at, should 
be on the outside. 

6. The artist has drawn these three children. You 
can see such almost anywhere. It is cold weather, and 
one of the children has on clothing which is warm and 
at the same time good looking. He is comfortable, 
looks well, even pretty, and can play around as lively 
and happy as anybody. The second has on too much 
clothing, and is neither comfortable, good-looking, 
nor happy ; and neither is the third, a girl, whose 
mamma thinks it makes the child lovely to have a 
thin dress and bare legs. Her outside wrap, pretty 



WARMTH AND CLOTHING. 



95 



as it is, does not keep her limbs and the lower part of 
her body warm, though warmth is there much needed. 




7. To keep in the warmth and to give additional 
warmth, it makes quite a difference what kind of 
clothes we wear, and how they are worn. If you put a 
piece of linen or cotton cloth around a tin can of 
coffee or soup, the covering gets warm very fast, but 
the air outside takes the heat out of it very fast also, 
and soon the can, and what is inside of it, grow cold. 
But, if you wrap it in woolen cloth, the heat is not 
carried through it so quickly, but remains in the can, 
and it will be a long time before the coffee or the 
soup cools. So with ourselves. Linen and cotton 
cloth make cool clothing if worn next the skin, while 
woolen is warm cloth, partly because it keeps the 



9 6 HEALTH LESSONS. 

natural warmth in the body, and partly because be- 
ing warm itself and having warm air mixed up in it 
between the fibers, it brings warmth against the body 
and keeps it there. 

8. If we live in very hot countries, woolen cloth- 
ing is not necessary. In the tropics it is so hot that 
people must get along with but very little clothing, 
sometimes none at all. White, gray, or light-colored 
clothing is the coolest and best for hot weather. In 
cold countries wool and fur clothing should be worn, 
and little or no cotton or linen. In temperate cli- 
mates, where the weather changes very frequently 
from hot to cold, or from dry to wet, it is wise to 
wear woolen cloth next the skin the whole year 
round. Very thin cloth in summer, and thicker in 
winter. When a mother asked a celebrated doctor 
what her baby needed, he replied, " Plenty of milk, 
plenty of exercise, and plenty of flannel." The last 
two we all need whether we are babies or not. 

9. How should clothes be worn? Certainly not 
tight-fitting. Let me explain why. Tight clothing 
is not only uncomfortable, but it puts different parts 
of the body out of shape, prevents their free motion, 
and hence disposes to disease. Under it there is but 
little air, which, in larger amount, would be like a 
soft warm pad against the skin. Now you see why 
a pair of gloves is colder than a pair of mittens, and 
why two pairs of cotton socks with cushions of warm 
air between and under them, may be warmer than a 
pair of woolen socks, and why a good blanket, though 



WARMTH AND CLOTHING. 



97 



light, is as warm, or even warmer, than the so-called 
comfortable, which on account of its weight is very 
uncomfortable. While we are talking of bedclothes, 
let me remind you that newspapers sewed between 
cloth make good bedclothes, as well as lining for vests 
and sacques. 

10. Tight collars not only cut off some of the 
air which ought to go to the lungs, but are so un- 
comfortable that you see boys and girls who wear 
them keep putting their fingers between the neck 
and the collar, or they stretch the neck upward, in 
the hope of getting ease. The clothing about the 
neck should be loose, to let the impurities which 
come from the skin escape easily, as w r ell as to allow 
us to breathe readily, even when walking fast or run- 
ning. Not only should the neck be loosely covered, 
but it should be open to the air except in very cold 
weather. 

ii. You have seen sailors in their loose blue shirts, 
and have noticed how the shirts are cut away at the 
neck. Underneath is an undershirt or vest, which 
comes up to the neck, but the neck itself is free and 
clear. All this is done to obey a rule of the navy, 
and a wise rule it is. If you wear tippets or fur col- 
lars, except in the very coldest weather, you will be 
likely to make your necks too warm, so that when you 
take off the wraps the cool air will suddenly carry off 
or drive in the heat, and you will, as people say, catch 
a sore throat or something worse. It is an enemy 
catching you rather than you catching the enemy. 



98 HEALTH LESSONS. 

12. The fact is, you want just enough clothing, 
and no more, and if you are stirring about you need 
less than when you are sitting still, for in motion 
more body warmth, called animal heat, comes to the 
skin. If you are sitting still, you need plenty of warm 
clothing, for you are not moving your muscles and 
sending extra warmth to the skin. People who don't 
remember this are likely, if sitting poorly clad, or 
for a long time in a cold room, to " catch cold M in 
the lungs and have pneumonia, or in the nerves and 
have neuralgia, or in the muscles and have rheu- 
matism. 

13. When you are out-of-doors you should stir 
about, then you will not need to be bundled up, but 
will keep warm and comfortable. A little cold air 
when you are stirring about out-of-doors is a better 
tonic for you than most medicines, and the child 
who thinks he can not stir out-of-doors except when 
the day is very warm loses a great deal of pleasure. 
Too much heat out-of-doors or in-doors makes one 
feel weak, and if the air is very hot there is danger 
of the brain being affected from "sun-stroke " or 
" heat-stroke. " 

14. When we read in stories, told by travelers, of 
people who cut themselves, tattoo their skin, stain 
their teeth, put rings through their noses and lips, 
pinch their feet, or flatten the heads of their little 
children out of shape, simply because it is the fash- 
ion of their country, we pity their ignorance. Yet 
fashion will make us press out of shape the chest and 



WARMTH AND CLOTHING. 99 

the organs inside, the heart and lungs, whose motion 




is so necessary for life ; will 
make us pinch the feet and 
compel children to wear short 
stockings in cold weather, 
simply because it is thought 
to be pretty. Fortunately, 
at the present time, corsets 
supporters, and bands 
not worn so much by 
children as they were 
formerly, when even 
boys wore stays. 

15. In certain fam- 
ilies there is still a 
tendency to have chil- 




TATTOOED HAM D \ 
Of M/\aqi>E.5/v> I JI-A INDENT 



IOO HEALTH LESSONS. 

dren imitate grown-up people in their dress as well 
as in their ways of speaking and acting. These 
children become little old people, funny perhaps 
to look at, but sad to think of, for they generally 
are not strong, nor are likely to live a great while, 
unless they become children again, and really play 
out-of-doors with other children, instead of walking 
about as if they were sixty years old. But, of course, 
a child can't hop, skip, and jump, or trundle a hoop, 
or play leap-frog, if the sleeves are so tight that the 
arms can't swing easily about, or the clothes so tight 
about the chest that one has to breathe very fast to 
get air enough to make his blood pure and to allow 
the impurities to come out of the cramped lungs. 
If the chest has a chance to move out and in, all 
these things can be done with easy, quiet breathing. 

1 6. If the feet are cramped by tight shoes, espe- 
cially with high heels and narrow toes, it becomes 
painful to play or even walk ! Think of the injury 
done to the delicate foot, which has in it many bones, 
muscles, and tender blood-vessels ! Think how the 
blood must be squeezed out of it, and how badly the 
foot feels when the blood is cut off ! With moccasins 
the Indian can move his feet freely, standing with 
ease on tip-toe, if need be, and the feet grow strong 
and supple. 

17. When sandals were worn, the feet were beau- 
tiful to look at. Nowadays it is very uncommon to 
see feet that are not out of shape, so badly have shoes 
fitted the feet. I say have fitted, because many peo- 



WARMTH AND CLOTHING. 



IOI 



pie are now wearing common-sense shoes, and the 
shoemaker is in many places no longer a mere cob- 
bler. 

1 8. A healthy baby's toes branch out somewhat 
from the foot. As the child grows older, the toes 




come nearer together. The adult's foot should be a 
beautiful one, with regular toes and supple joints, 
but how few of these we see, and how many with 
toes bent in by the pressure of shoes, or even cross- 
ing each other, or with clumsy ankles and the soles 
perfectly flat, instead of being arched ! 

19. I suppose I need not tell you that clothing, 
especially that near the skin, should be dry and clean. 
This is true of bedclothing, as well as of our personal 
clothing. If we are caught in a storm, or get wet in 
a pond, we should hurry as soon as we can to shelter, 
take off the wet clothing and dry our skins thoroughly. 
No one is so strong that he can afford to be careless. 



102 HEALTH LESSONS. 

20. In some of the schools I have visited I have 
been told by the principals that there were boys pres- 
ent who wore the same clothes night and day for 
weeks together — just think of it ! In other schools I 
have seen neat, tidy-looking girls, who were not 
ashamed to wear aprons, and even extra sleeves 
pulled over the sleeves of their dresses, to protect 
the clothes, for you know how quickly rubbing the 
elbows on the desks wears out the sleeves. 

21. Certainly we should change our clothes at 
night, to enjoy a peaceful sleep, and to have the feel- 
ing of cleanliness about us. At night our day-clothes 
should be placed where they will be well aired, and 
our night-clothes in the morning should be hung up, 
not put under the pillow. The beds, before being 
made up, should be exposed for some time to sun 
and air. 

22. When we are warm, we don't need so much 
food as when we are chilly, so it has been said that 
clothes take the place of food, though some of you 
would not care, I take it, always to receive clothes 
when you ask for food. But it is a good thing for 
you to remember that if persons have not enough 
clothing or food, especially in cold and windy 
weather, when the body loses heat very rapidly, 
they are badly off, and this condition of things may 
come to any of us. 

23. So, instead of throwing away old clothes, or 
selling them to the ragman, form among your school- 
mates Harry Wadsworth clubs or " lend-a-hand " so- 



WARMTH AND CLOTHING. 103 

cieties, mend the old clothes and give them to chil- 
dren who need them. There is nothing disgraceful 
in wearing neatly-patched clothes, but there is in go- 
ing about ragged and dirty. You can also support 
coffee-houses and diet-kitchens, where good, warm, 
substantial food can be sold at very moderate prices, 
and so help to keep people healthy and warm, and 
out of the liquor-saloons. 

24. In one of our cities, among the large ware- 
houses, there is a warm, cozy dining-room called 
" The Crumb," where the workmen who work along- 
shore can procure cheap and wholesome meals, and 
so do not feel that they must go to a saloon and buy 
a glass of beer or liquor for the sake of getting some 
of the "free lunch " which is given in these places to 
induce people to drink. 

For Recitation. 

1. Is it necessary to keep one's body warm inside? Yes; for 
without warmth the parts inside can not move readily. 

2. Is it necessary to keep one's body warm outside? Yes ; for 
if we become chilled or cold on the outside, some of the blood in the 
body is driven in too large a quantity into the lungs or some other 
internal part, and we are likely to be ill. 

3. What is useful to help keep warmth inside and on the outside 
of the body ? Clothing. 

4. In selecting clothing, should we consider first our comfort or 
our looks ? Our comfort. 

5. When is our clothing comfortable ? First, when it is neither 
too tight nor too loose. Second, when there is just enough, neither 
too much nor too little. Third, when it is dry and clean and light. 




LESSON X. 

Cleanliness. 

ET every child who reads this 
book learn "to hate dirt and to 
get rid of it, not to hide it." If 
your skin is not clean, no matter 
how much beautiful clothing or 
fine jewelry you wear, you are 
still a dirty child. If, after 
sweeping a room, you put the dust in a corner, out 
of sight, or leave some on the top of a picture-frame, 
because nobody will notice it there, you have sim- 
ply changed the dirt from one part of the room to 
another, for dust is dirt, and you haven't got rid of 
it. " But," says some one, " I thought dirt was not 
always a bad thing. I know of doctors who tell little 
children to ' live out-of-doors and to play in the dirt/ " 
Yes, that is true, but there's a difference between clean 
dirt and dirty dirt, and whether you stay dirty or not. 
You may make mud-pies, and even get dirt on your 
hands and face, without harm, if you don't leave it 
there. You all like to dig down to water in the clean 
sand by the sea-shore, and it is good for you. 

2. Clean dirt is dirt which hasn't had foul water 
upon it or in it, and which is not mixed with rubbish 



CLEANLINESS. 



105 



or, what is worse, dead plants, insects, and other such 
things. Dirt, which is removed from the body by 
bathing, is dust from the air about us, mixed with the 
impurities which have come out of the body by the 
skin, together with pieces of dead skin, hairs, fibers 
of cloth ; and the sweat or perspiration, which if left 
very long on the skin, becomes sour and dirty, and is 
then really dirty water. The dirt in our houses comes 
from fires, carpets, clothing, curtains, skins, food, etc. 
The dust out-of-doors contains sand, seeds, and pieces 
of wood, leaves, insects, coal, hair, leather, food, and 
ever so many other things, but, w r orst of all, little liv- 
ing but invisible bodies called bacteria, which seem 
to hunt out the weak and sickly and dirty, and give 
them scarlet fever, measles, small-pox, or some other 
so-called contagious disease. 

3. These little bodies, or germs of disease, as they 
are called, are like so many hidden enemies out of our 
sight, but ever ready to pounce down on us if we are 
in condition to receive them, and that we are when 
we are careless about our food, air, clothing, bathing, 
and exercise. Dust will travel long distances, as it is 
blown by the winds, and will force its way into houses, 
schools, and churches. So you see you can hardly 
help getting dirty, and it is not wrong if you do, but 
it is wrong to keep dirty. There are some children, I 
am afraid, who look upon soap, water, a sponge, a 
wash-rag, and a towel as enemies, for it is really some 
trouble to keep ourselves clean ; but remember the 
hidden enemies I have told you of, the little bacteria, 



io6 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



how they are real enemies whose business it is to make 
you sick if you will only let them. u If one of these 
enemies was magnified to make it an inch long, it 
would be just as if a man of ordinary size was made 
eleven miles high." 

4. I have met with children who thought it un- 
necessary to wash all over, but that was because they 
didn't really know how w r onderful a thing the skin 
is, and how important it is to keep it all clean. There 
are a good many children who don't wash their necks 
and behind their ears, the places, they think, people 
can't see ; but they do see, just as they do when you 
don't black the back part of your shoes. Such chil- 




Tidy. 



Untidy. 



dren are not likely to clean their finger-nails, or to 
keep their clothes neat or their books clean. 

5. Before you can really know why you should 



CLEANLINESS. 



10 J 



be clean all over, you must know what your skin is 
and why it needs 
care. Ants and cats 
and even rats keep 
themselves clean, 
from what we call 
instinct, but chil- 
dren want a reason 
for the things they 
are told to do. One 
reason why the skin 
should be kept clean 
is that waste parti- 
cles go out of the 
body by little canals 
in the skin, and 
through thousands 
of openings called 
pores. Through 

these pores water, 
and sometimes, as in 
illness, medicine and 
food can be taken in. 
6. On the out- 
side of the skin are 
several layers of 
scales — not large, 
like the scales 
of a fish, but 
little ones. 





io8 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



Some of these you can easily scrape off. They rub 
off into the water whenever you wash your hands, 
and frequently fall off and float away in the air to 
carry with them scarlet fever or other contagious 
disease, if you happen to have one. The lizard and 
frog leave off their whole skin at once, instead of 
scaling off as we do. The gentleman who saw this 
lizard stripping off his skin says that it took but five 
minutes to do it. The scales have no blood nor feel- 
ing in them, and are meant to protect the tender skin 
beneath, which does bleed and hurt when it is pricked 
or cut. Upon the body they form the outer skin, or 
false skin, or cuticle. When you burn yourself so that 
a blister comes, the covering of the blister is the cuti- 
cle, and the water is from 
the injured capillaries. If 
you break this cuticle, 
you know how sore the 
true or under-skin is when 
exposed to the air. 

7. Out of some of the 
pores comes the perspira- 
tion or sweat. It flows 
out on the skin all the 
time, but we don't notice 
it unless there is consid- 
erable of it, and then we say, " We are in a perspira- 
tion." Just so the tears flow all the time, but we 
don't know anything about them until they overflow 
from the eyes upon the face. To let the perspiration 




Ridges and Pores of the Skin. 



CLEANLINESS. 



109 



freely out is another reason why the skin should be 
clean and the pores open, for not only does it carry 
dirt with it, but by evaporating it cools the skin 
when overheated. Perspiration comes from long 
tubes which have their lower ends coiled up in the 
true skin and near the fat which lies beneath. These 
coils are surrounded by capillary blood-vessels, some 
of which nourish the parts, and some send into the 
coils or sweat-glands, as they are called, refuse mate- 
rial and water, so that these glands are like springs in 
which water is always bubbling up from deep streams 
underground. 

8. Now you see how the skin can be cooled if the 
pores are open, and the true skin and delicate blood- 
vessels are protected by the false skin. You will want 
to know why a baby don't get wet through when it is 
taking a bath, as a doll would be very likely to do if 
dipped in water. One reason is, because water is 
coming out of the pores ; another, that water does not 
readily go through the scales on the skin ; but, more 
than this, there are many pores that send out oil upon 
the skin to keep it smooth. 

9. There are so many of these oil-glands or bags 
that open on the necks and faces of human beings, 
especially on the sides of the nose, that boys often 
shine hard rubber rings by rubbing them on the skin 
of these parts. Very many oil-glands open close to 
the roots of the hair, and if we brush the hair fre- 
quently it will be beautifully smooth from this nat- 
ural hair-oil, and it will be seldom necessary to use 



HO HEALTH LESSONS. 

any other kind of grease. Look at the careful groom, 
how he rubs and brushes, and brushes and rubs, the 
coat of the horse until it feels like velvet ! A well- 
brushed horse is never frouzy, and neither does a boy 
or girl need to be so. 

10. The skin, besides being a covering and protec- 
tion to the parts beneath, besides sending out impuri- 
ties and helping to regulate the heat of the body, is 
also the principal part of the body that we feel with. 
The last use of the skin which we mention is to take 
into the body some of the pure oxygen in the air, and 
send out some carbonic-acid gas — that is, it breathes. 
The skin then does six kinds of work, more than any 
other part of the body that I know of, and if it is not 
clean it can not do this work well. 

ii. But, while we are talking about the skin, we 
must not forget the hair and nails, which are really a 
part of the skin. The little, soft, pretty, pink nails of 
the baby are more for beauty than use, but as the 
child grows older the nails grow stronger, and pro- 
tect the ends of fingers and toes from injury, and 
help the fingers to pick up things. Many people, in 
parts of the world where feet are as free from cover- 
ing as the hands, can readily pick up things with the 
toes. A child who has the habit of biting the finger- 
nails instead of cutting or paring them, is likely to 
make the skin under them sore, and the nails rough 
and jagged, and of little use. 

12. Hair not only protects the head from injury, 
but in eyelashes and eyebrows prevents perspiration 



CLEAXLINESS. 1 1 1 

from trickling into the eyes. Now you understand 
why old men and others who have lost much hair 
are obliged to use their handkerchiefs freely, and to 
mop their heads and faces. If you want to have a 
good thick head of hair, you must not keep it covered 
with thick or tight caps or bonnets, but expose it 
freely to the air, brush it thoroughly, and when you 
take your bath wash )^our head as well as the rest of 
the body. 

13. So important a part of the body is the skin 
that, if it is too dirty to work well, impurities are kept 
in the body, and perspiration and heat can not come 
out, and the whole body gets sick. When the body 
is in good condition the skin is clear, and the cheeks 
actually glow with the red hue of health. It is not 
necessary to paint them, as dolls' cheeks have to be 
painted. Nature does the work. One of the sad 
things in life is to see the roses fade out of the cheeks 
of a once well and happy boy or girl, because he or 
she can not or will not live in pure air, take enough 
exercise, eat proper food, dress aright, and be happy 
and contented. 

14. A child clean in person will probably try to 
have his clothes mended and clean. As he grows 
older, the habit of cleanliness will be so fixed that his 
house will be kept clean, dirt and rubbish removed 
promptly, and garbage will be burned instead of left 
to stand around to poison the air. If a bird is kept 
in the house, the cage, perches, wire, bottom, and all 
will be cleaned, and dirt will be looked upon as an 

8 



112 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



enemy wherever it intrudes itself. When the neat 
child is grown, he will do what he can to assist others 
to put away dirt. The cleanly person will appreciate 
how light points out dirt, and will arrange to have 
sunlight in all his rooms. He will know that dirt 
must be got rid of, and the air made pure, and so 
will have his house well ventilated. If naturally dirty 




Thrift. 



boys or girls do not try to become neat, they will 
probably become more and more slovenly and idle, 
and perfectly content to live in shabby houses, or 
huddled together with others of their kind in a 
wretched cellar or attic. 

15. I suppose most of you children think you 



CLEANLINESS. U 3 

know all about how to bathe, to keep yourselves clean. 
Let me see if you do. Do you know that neither hot 
nor very cold baths are safe to take at any time, and 
especially if people are weak, or have any disease of 
the heart or blood-vessels ? Do you know that a 
good, pure soap should be used with most of our 
baths to remove the dirt and greasy particles from 
the skin ; that the skin should be rubbed very dry 
after each bath ; that we should bathe if possible in 
a warm room ; that we should try to get used to cool- 
water baths ; and that we can not all remain safely in 
the water the same length of time ? I have seen grown 
people and children in the water at Coney Island 
shivering with cold, but watching the big clock on 
the pier to see when fifteen or twenty minutes were 
up, the time they thought they should give to the 
bath, whereas the truth is that some people can safely 
stay in only five minutes, and some half an hour or 
more. 

16. Here are four rules to learn: i. It is well to 
sponge or wash the entire body two or three times 
a week in cool water, and once in warm water. 2. 
Become accustomed to cool water, at first using 
warm and gradually making it colder. 3. Don't 
stand shivering in the tub or the ocean, pond, or 
river, but get out if your skin begins to pucker, mak- 
ing what is called goose-flesh, and your teeth chatter, 
and your lips grow blue, and you feel chilly, no mat- 
ter how short a time you have been in the water. 4. 
When you bathe, first wet your head well, then jump 



U4 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



right into the water, and stir around while you are 
in, and dry yourself thoroughly when you get out. 
Thorough friction or rubbing of the skin after a bath 
with a good towel and then with the hands, till the 
skin glows, is important. Even dry rubbing — that is, 
when no water has been used — is of service to the 
skin. Every child should use each day, for the sake 
of cleanliness, the five brushes which the artist has 
put in connection with this picture, drawn by a little 
girl. 




CLEANLINESS. 



For Recitation. 



us 



1. Why should we like to be clean ? Because dirt on our bodies 
spoils our looks, and keeps the skin from doing its work. 

2. Why is dust spoken of as dirt ? Because it has in it dead 
and sometimes harmful things — insects, hair, pieces of skin, etc., 
and at times germs or seeds of disease. 

3. W T hy is it necessary to be clean all over ? Because the skin 
covers the entire body, and it is through the skin that part of the 
refuse comes out of the body. 

4. What kinds of work does a healthy skin do ? Six kinds. It 
protects the parts underneath ; through it we feel things by touch ; 
it lets refuse matter go out through its pores or openings ; it lets out 
perspiration to cool the body ; it takes into the body water and some- 
times medicine ; and it helps us to breathe. 

5. What kind of hair-oil is the best? The natural oil from the 
oil-glands in the skin. 

6. How can you compel the glands or bags to send out the oil, 
and how make your hair smooth ? By brushing the hair frequently 
with a good brush. 

7. What are the nails for ? To beautify and protect the ends 
of fingers and toes, and to allow us readily to pick things up. 

8. How does the care of the skin affect our health ? If we don't 
keep the skin clean, we interfere with its work, and make other parts 
of the body do more work than they should. 

9. Why is it a good thing for children to get into the habit of 
being clean as to their persons? Because the habit will grow 
stronger as they grow older, and they will be likely to have their 
houses and grounds clean, as well as themselves and families. 

10. What brushes should you use each day ? The hair-brush, 
the tooth-brush, the nail-brush, the clothes-brush, and the shoe- 
brush. 




LESSON XI. 

Work and Flay. 

LL work and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy," is a proverb I suppose most 
children have heard. Some of them 
don't believe in any kind of work, 
and do believe in all kinds of play ; 
yet it is equally true that all play 
and no work is very bad, indeed, for 
both boys and girls. It makes them worse than 
dull, it makes them lazy and selfish, if it does not get 
them into bad company, and, finally, the poor-house 
or prison. The fact is, we need both work and play, 
and in both we must be really interested if we expect 
any good to come of it ; so — 

" Work while you work, 
Play while you play, 
That is the way 

To be cheerful and gay." 

" Moments are useless 
When trifled away ; 
So work while you work, 
And play while you play." 



WORK AND PL A V. 1 1 7 

2. All of you know of children who mope about, 
even when they are at play. They are a hard lot of 
children to play with. Some of them, I fear, are too 
lazy ; some have eaten so much that to play in a 
lively way will make them have a stomach-ache ; some 
are so bundled up that they can't move their arms or 
legs comfortably ; some wear clothes so fine or so 
tightly fitted to their bodies that they are afraid to 
move lest they may soil the clothes or tear them. 
There are children (and you must never make fun of 
them, for that is mean and wrong) who have never 
learned how to play ; either because they have been 
weak and sickly most of their lives, or because they 
never have been allowed to play as healthy, active 
children should — that is, to romp and have a good 
time. 

3. When you really work and really play, you exer- 
cise your body — that is, you set the muscles to work, 
the heart pumps the blood through the body more 
strongly than before, and the lungs work harder. If 
you exercise as you should, in pure air, all the cells in 
the body, at the right time and in the right way, sep- 
arate from the blood w T hat is needed for the nourish- 
ment of bones, muscles, skin, and other organs. All 
parts of the body begin vigorously to work, more heat 
is made, the skin glows, and the boy or girl who is 
exercising feels warmer, happier, and stronger. 

4. If you don't work and play with energy, the 
muscles will grow weak and flabby, the bones softer, 
the heart will not act like a well-oiled pump, the blood 



u8 



HEALTH LESSONS. 




Work. 



WORK AND PL A V. 



II 9 



will move through the body as a slow, sluggish stream 
of water moves along ; little oxygen will be taken into 
the lungs, but much of the poisonous carbonic acid 
kept in. The skin will flush or grow cool easily, and 
the person who does not exercise, feels chilly, miser- 
able, and weak. The ant, the spider, and the bee 
show what can be accomplished by steady, persever- 
ing work. 

5. Sometimes children play too hard, or are made 
to work too hard, which is all wrong ; for then the 
muscles, bones, heart, lungs, and all parts of the body 
become tired out and injured so that they are of little 
use afterward. It is wrong, for example, for a girl to 
jump rope until she is so tired she can hardly stand, 
or for a boy to skate until he aches all over. Feeble 
children should never try to do all that strong children 
do, even if they are laughed at for being " dared " or 
"stumped." If you are feeble, think more of how 
your heart is going to stand it if you play " follow 
my leader,'' than of how your feelings will be hurt if 
you don't. 

6. If you change your games frequently, you will 
not tire of play. There are games so rough, or that 
boys play so roughly, that I must say a word about 
them, for I have seen boys hurt very badly in such 
plays. One is " beat the squirrel," another " beetle 
and wedge," in which the boy who is pushed so 
roughly against another may have his neck sprained. 
In the game of " trades " a boy is likely to be ham- 
mered, planed, or rasped so hard that he may be in- 



I2o HEALTH LESSONS. 

jured. In " mumblety-peg " more than one nose has 
been injured by being rudely driven into the ground. 
Throwing stones or ice-balls is a dangerous pastime. 
It was but the other day that a lad, happening to be 
passing near where some boys were throwing ice- 
balls, was hit on the head by one containing a stone, 
which some boy had put there, thinking it was funny ; 
and, though the surgeons did all they could, the bone 
which was broken, pressed upon the delicate brain, 
made it inflame, and the poor little fellow died. It is 
not funny nor manly ever to injure any one's property or 
person, and there are enough sports that are safe. 

7. Some of you who don't know how to work (and 
there are such children, just as there are children who 
don't know how to play) are wondering by this time 
what kind of work can we children do. You for- 
get how you sing in one of your plays, " As we go 
round the mulberry-bush,'' telling how you wash your 
clothes on Monday morning, iron them on Tuesday, 
scrub on Wednesday, mend on Thursday, sweep on 
Friday, and bake on Saturday. Now, some of these 
things are exactly what most of you can learn to do, 
even when you are children. 

8. To wash or iron many clothes, and to scrub 
very much, I agree with you, is too hard work for 
children, and it is sad to see young boys and girls 
who are obliged (because of the death of one or both 
parents) to work very hard to provide a home for the 
little sisters and brothers. No matter how brave 
these children are with their work, they don't have 



WORK AND PLAY. 



play enough, and so get worn 
out and old-looking long be- 
fore they should. Most of 
you, I am sure, are not troub- 
led with too much work. It 
may even be very hard to get 
you to run cheerfully on an 
errand, or to do a little house- 
work each day, to clean the 
yard, or to put where they be- 
long your books and playthings 
after you have done with them, 
all because you believe in play 
and not in what you call work. 
9. Remember that work 
and play go together, and if 
you are well 
and will not 
work you 
have no 



122 HEALTH LESSONS. 

right to play. In some schools of which I know, 
some of the larger boys had a " strike," as they called 
it, would not work at their studies, and tried hard 
not to let other boys work, all because these first 
fellows wanted to have a longer noon recess, not 
for real play, but to idle away their time or to do 
mischief. Now, do you suppose for one single mo- 
ment that, if these boys had learned how to w r ork and 
play properly, they would have cared to make trouble 
in a school ? No ; the children who work well and 
play well are brave children, who are trying all the 
time not to be mean or idle, or to get into bad habits. 
They will " lend a hand " to others who can't work 
and play, and will grow up thrifty and become our 
best citizens. The other children are very likely to 
be among the worst, and when they die will hardly 
be missed. 

10. There was a time when children at a proper 
age could be bound as apprentices to learn thoroughly 
a trade. Now there .are very few apprentices, and 
the number of children who grow up to understand 
well any special trade is very small as compared with 
the number in the days of our grandfathers and great- 
grandfathers. To change this condition of things cer- 
tain schools are now teaching various trades, such as 
carpenter-work, and how to make shoes, broom- 
handles, brushes, harness, lace, wire-work, ropes, rugs, 
and very many things besides. Every girl as well as 
every boy must look forward in life to doing some 
kind of work well. To be useful is of more impor- 



WORK AND PLA V. 



123 



tance than to be good-looking or to dress well, and 
the sooner we begin to be useful the better. 



For Recitation. 

1 . How does all work and no play do harm ? It shortens life by 
tiring people out sooner than they should be, and tends to make 
them gloomy or discontented. 

2. How does all play and no work do harm ? It shortens life 
also, for it tends to make people lazy, and to fall into bad habits, 
stealing, drunkenness, and the like. 

3. What happens to you if you do work and play as you should ? 
The body grows stronger and the brain also. 

4. What results if you don't have enough work and play, or if 
you have too much? The blood becomes poorer, the muscles 
weaker, there is less warmth in the body, and the parts of the body 
don't work well, and I get weak or sick. 

5. What work can children do ? Some kinds of house-work, and 
work in the garden, running of errands, and making themselves 
generally useful. 




LESSON XII. 

Our Framework. 

ECENTLY, a little boy asked, " Why 
can't a baby walk in a few days 
after it is born, just as a puppy 
does ? " Some of you have thought 
it strange that your wee little broth- 
ers and sisters don't play around and 
kick up their heels as young calves 
or lambs do. Some of you want to know, too, how it 
is that any one can work and play, can even move 
around, for food does not make people move, and 
blood, though it moves itself, does not move us. 
Nor can air, clothing, and bathing do it. All these 
things help to keep our bodies in such condition 
that they are always ready to move, but the real 
movers are the muscles, assisted by their servants, the 
bones. 

2. But the bones and muscles would not move if 
it were not for the brain and nerves. Where they 
are and how they work you will be told farther on. 
The baby has muscles and bones, as a grown person 
has, but the bones are soft, and not strong enough 
to bear the weight of the body, and the muscles are 



OUR FRAMEWORK. 



125 



■^ 



so feeble that they 
can't move the body 
about very much before the 
child is a year old. In the 
c picture you see that the baby 
can not turn itself over, while 
the calf, the kitten, and the young 
bird are able to take care of 
themselves. 

3. You all know what a 
bone is, for you eat the meat 
from a bone when you have 
the drumstick of a turkey, 
and you see rib-bones sometimes 
in the roast beef on the table ; 
and the " wish -bone," certainly 
you know about. Nearly all an- 
imals have bones which are so 
placed and ar- 
ranged that mus- 
cles can grasp 
them. Some of 




I 2 6 HEAL TH LESSONS. 

the flat bones, by their joining together, make a kind 
of box to hold the brain. Others protect the lungs, 
heart, and other important organs. If we had no 
bones, we would be like the soft jelly-fish you may 
have seen at the sea-shore. If our skins were tough- 
ened to take the place of bones, as in some kinds 
of worms, or if in place of bones we had shells as 
crabs have, or gristle-like frames for our legs and 
arms as the butterflies have, we might look odd or 
even beautiful, but we would not be able to play 
and work in the way I feel sure most of you want 
to do. 

4. The bones, as you see them in meat, are not 
just as they are in the animals during life. As you see 
them they are dead bones, like dead twigs of trees, 
dry, hard, and brittle. During life they are like the 
live wood, and though they are hard in older chil- 
dren and grown-up people, yet they bend somewhat 
when our bodies move, and are filled with juices, a 
part of which is blood. The outside as well as the 
inside of live bones is well supplied with blood, so 
you see bones in the body are not what you have 
probably thought them to be. 

5. Bones are affected by food, drink, warmth, and 
exercise, just as all parts of the body are that have 
blood going to them and coming from them. If 
young children don't have enough to eat, or if they 
eat too many sweet, rich, or starchy things, and not 
enough food that has lime in it, the bones grow soft, 
and are easily bent out of shape. If you abuse your 



OUR FRAMEWORK. 



127 



blood by strong drink, your bones as well as the other 
parts of the body will suffer. 

6. In the body there are about two hundred bones, 
some long, some short, some flat, and some thick. 
They do not lie around everywhere, but are joined 
together, and form what is called the framework or 
skeleton, which is necessary in a good many things 
besides animals. Most of the bones are joined to- 
gether by bands called ligaments. These are strong, 
but yield like India-rubber when the bones are moved. 
The bones in the upper part of the head or skull fit 
into one another somewhat as a carpenter fits one 
piece of wood into another. It would not do to have 
anything but the strongest kind of joining here, where 
the delicate important brain is to be protected. 

7. Where the bones are joined together the parts 
are called joints. We have toe-joints, ankle-joints, 
knee-joints, hip-joints, finger-joints, wrist-joints, elbow- 
joints, and shoulder-joints. In dolls, joints are gen- 
erally of one kind, for it would make dolls cost a 
great deal if there were different kinds of joints. But 
in the building of our bodies only use and beauty 
were considered. At the shoulder the round upper 
end of the arm-bone fits into a sort of cup in the 
flat shoulder-bone or shoulder-blade, as the ball does 
into the cup, in the game of " cup and ball," and this 
joint is called a ball-and-socket joint. At the hip is 
the same kind of a joint, though the cup is deeper. 
This arrangement at the shoulders allows us to swing 
our arms about in almost every direction, if they are 

9 



128 HEALTH LESSONS. 

not held down by tight clothing, and also the hip- 
joint lets us move our legs freely. At the elbows 
and knees the joints are somewhat like hinges, and 
are called hinge-joints. It would not do to have ball- 
and-socket joints at the knees, for, as soon as we 
should try to stand or walk about, the legs would 
fly out from under us, and then how we would look 
and feel ! 

8. In the joints that are movable (you already 
know that in the upper part of the head and in the 
hip-bones they are not), the bones are very smooth, 
and between and about them is a natural oily mate- 
rial, which, if we are in good health, keeps the joints 
greased, so that the bones can move easily upon one 
another. You know in sewing-machines, steam-en- 
gines, and other machinery, oil has to be poured into 
the joints to make them work well. Our machinery 
is oiled for us. 

9. Boys have a trick of snapping joints, as they 
call it — that is, they pull on the end of the finger, 
stretch the ligaments, then let go the finger, and ex- 
pect one bone to go back against another with a snap 
or click. This is not a safe thing to do, because 
sometimes the end of the finger will not go back, and 
then the boy is crippled. 

10. Now, since you know what bones are, what 
they are for, and how well they are arranged to en- 
able us to work and to play, I trust you will not say 
scornfully when you see or read about bones, " Oh, 
they are only bones ! " There are persons who have 



OUR FRAMEWORK. 



129 



3,. 







rimm 




0£APt>Zkrt 



13° 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



studied so much about how animals are made that 
they can tell, by merely looking at a few bones, of 
what animals they were a part. You know now that 
the skeleton is but a framework. This picture shows 
that the horse, the house, the tree, and the turtle have 
frameworks also. 

ii. If any of you think we ought to have had an 
outside skeleton to protect us, as the crab has, or that 
we should have had heavy plates of bones like the 
turtle, with an inside skeleton besides, just consider 
how the crab's shell comes off every year, and the 
crab is then left so soft and unprotected that he is 
hunted for, to be eaten. If you admire the turtle 
with his heavy armor, and would wish to be like 
him, think how slowly he moves around. 

12. No; our framework is just the thing for us. 
It could not have been better built. All of the very 
important parts of the body are protected by the 
bones of the framework. With their aid we can 
have a variety of movements. The spinal column 
or back-bone, made up as it is of thirty-six bones, is 
so arranged that it protects the spinal cord, which 
runs through it, and yet allows us to move our bodies 
freely. 

For Recitation. 

i. How do we move? By means of our bones and mus- 
cles. 

2. What moves the bones and muscles? The brain and the 
nerves. 

3. Why are babies more helpless than the young of many ani- 



OUR FRAMEWORK. 



i3« 



mals ? Because they grow slower and do not need to move about 
as soon. 

4. What are bones ? They are hard substances, but at the 
same time elastic. They give support to muscles and other parts 
of the body, and protect important organs, such as the brain. 

5. Is there any difference between the bones in an animal's 
body during life, and after they have been removed from the body ? 
Yes ; in the body they are alive, and have blood going through 
them. 

6. How do bones grow and keep in good health ? By means of 
food, exercise, and rest. 

7. What is meant by the skeleton of the body ? It is the frame- 
work, made by the joining together of bones. 

8. Has anything else a skeleton besides the human body ? Yes, 
many animals and plants, as well as houses and other things. 

9. What are the places called where the bones join ? Joints. 
10. How many bones in the body ? About two hundred. 



LESSON XIII. 




How we Move. 

VERY part of the body is moved by 
means of muscles. The muscles 
that set the head, trunk, and limbs 
in motion number about four hun- 
dred. They are of many different 
shapes, according to the work they 
have to do, and are put over the 
skeleton in layers. This arrangement provides for 
many muscles in a small space, and helps to keep the 
outside of the body smooth and beautifully rounded. 
Suppose you had a wooden skeleton of a doll, as large 
as a baby, with bones and joints made just as a baby's 
are, and you wanted to make the skeleton move and 
be of some use. Suppose, again, that some fairy 
should give you four hundred muscles to put on the 
skeleton ; you would very soon find that you could 
not put them on without making the body have humps 
all over its surface. 

2. In a baby there are as many muscles as in a 
grown person, but they are used very little, and so 
are neither large nor strong. Then, too, fat, which a 
baby needs so much for warmth, covers the muscles 



HOW WE MOVE. 



133 




M ; 



and hides them. As the child grows older, its mus- 
cles grow larger and stronger ; and if it works and 



^^ 





ti 







Properly developed. 



Improperly developed. 



*34 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



plays, and thus exercises as it should, the fat disap- 
pears to a large extent, and the outlines of the mus- 
cles begin to show through the skin. The child's 
body is then said to be properly developed. If it has 
not used the muscles sufficiently, 
the flesh is flabby and its body im- 
properly developed. 

3. The muscles that move the 
body have generally one end at- 
tached to one bone, and the oth- 
er to another ; and 



are somewhat like 
rubber bands that 
close a gate or 
door. When one 
of the bones moves 
toward the other, 
the muscles that do 
the moving short- 
en, and swell from 
side to side; where- 
as, when one bone 
goes away from 
another, the mus- 
cles grow longer. 
In this picture of the legs of a frog in motion and 
at rest you can see how muscles act. 

4. The muscles that move our heads, trunks, and 
limbs are called voluntary muscles, because they are 
under the control of the will. The muscles that move 





Frog-leg: A, muscles contracted, 
cles at rest (Sewall). 



B, mus- 



HOW WE MOVE. 




the organs within the body are in the 
walls of these organs, and are called 
involuntary muscles, because we have 
but little control over them. If we 
did have control, from want of proper 
care, our hearts and stomachs would soon 
fail us, and there would be a great many 
more sick people in the world than 
there are now. 
5. Muscles, in order to grow strong and be able 
to do their work, must be used properly. Think 
how many kinds of work our bodies should do, from 
the most delicate to the heaviest and most severe. 
Here are pictures of a man, with his skin on and with 
his skin off. He has trained to grow strong. See 
how the muscles show through the skin, and how 
large they are ! There is but little fat. Most of us, 



136 HEALTH LESSONS. 

however, do not need to train so as to have larger 
muscles than everybody else. What we want are 
strong, firm, but elastic muscles that will enable us 
to work well, play well, digest well, breathe well, and 
have our hearts work well. 

6. We don't want strong arms and weak legs, or 
strong legs and weak arms, or a strong heart and 
weak lungs, but we want every part to be strong if 
possible. Some of us can never reach that point, but 
we can all aim at it. We certainly can never be strong 
all over if we use only one set of muscles. Birds, 
like ostriches, that are compelled to walk a great 
deal, have very strong legs. Birds that fly have 
very strong muscles attached to the wings. Fleas 
and frogs and kangaroos, that hop on their hind-legs, 
have the hind-legs very strong. The blacksmith, 
who swings heavy hammers and works mainly with 
his arms, has the arms very strong, though his legs 
may be weak ; whereas the man who runs, walks, or 
dances for a living, generally has very strong legs. 
But, as already said, what we need is to have all 
the parts strong, each according to its place and 
work. 

7. If any of you that are now strong have been 
very ill for a number of days, you know how weak 
you were when getting well ; you were hardly able 
to stand, because during your illness the heart did 
not pump as strongly as when you were stirring 
around ; the blood could not be sent into the mus- 
cles as thoroughly ; the food you could take was not 



HO IV WE MOVE. 



137 



sufficient to make the blood rich with nutriment ; and 
the nerves were too weak to carry orders from the 
brain to the muscles to do their work, so the muscles 
were not used much and became weak. When you 
attempt to walk after such an illness, it is somewhat 
as if a baby were learning to walk. You find that, 
even to stand, a number of muscles must relax, and a 
number of muscles must contract or grow firm. It is 
months before a baby can control all its muscles so 
that it can stand. 

8. Most of the acts we perform (things that we 
do), even so apparently simple a thing as buttoning a 
coat or picking up a lead-pencil, sets several muscles 
to work. Sometimes children, when reciting their 
lessons in school, try to stand or balance themselves 
on one leg like geese, but geese can beat you at 
this, for they have acquired the habit of so standing. 
Your muscles should be so strong that you would be 
able to hold yourself erect on both feet for a short 
time at least. 

9. Sometimes children use certain muscles so much 
that those muscles become strong, while others, that 
should be used frequently, but are generallv left un- 
used, become weak. For instance, some of you think 
it is very funny to look cross-eyed, and you practice 
this way of looking until the muscles whose duty it 
is to pull the eyes inward become too strong, while 
those whose duty it is to pull outward become weak, 
and so the habit of looking cross-eyed is settled on 
you. 



1 38 HEALTH LESSONS. 

10. Some of you " look sour " so often at the slight- 
est thing which happens to displease you, that the 
muscles which pull the corners of the mouth down 
and pout the lips and wrinkle the forehead become 
too strong, and the longer you practice this looking 
sour the harder it becomes for the other muscles to 
make you look pleasant again. Some of you laugh 
so much at the slightest thing that you are ever on 
the grin ; so easily do muscles by frequent use be- 
come developed. So children who frequently whine 
because they can not have what they want, and beg- 
gars who cry when they are trying to make people 
help them, make certain muscles grow at the expense 
of others. What a blessed thing it is that dolls can 
not whine and pout, and cry and stamp their feet! 
What would become of us all if they could ? 

ii. I am sure that by this time you all see the im- 
portance of making strong as many muscles in the 
body as possible, so that you can use the left hand 
as well as the right; so that you can use thoroughly 
your eyes and ears, and see the beautiful things about 
you ; so that you need not cry or laugh when doing 
so is out of place. There are several things which 
will make the muscles weak and so unsteady that 
they can not work and play as they should. Such 
are sickness, laziness, and the frequent use of tobacco 
and stimulating drinks, such as strong coffee or tea, 
and liquids containing alcohol. 



HOW WE MOVE. 



For Recitation. 



* 39 



i. What do muscles do besides moving- us from place to place? 
They move almost every part of the body, both inside and outside 
of the skeleton. 

2. How can muscles make the body move? They move bones, 
and so bend the joints. 

3. Why can not a baby move about as readily as a child several 
years old ? Because his muscles are not so strong. 

4. What is meant when it is said that a boy's body is not prop- 
erly developed ? That his muscles are not strong enough for him 
to work and play as he should. 

5. How can they be made strong enough ? By using them each 
day, but not so hard as to weaken them. 

6. What are voluntary muscles? Those w T e can generally con- 
trol ? 

7. Why are not the heart, stomach, etc., under our control ? Be- 
cause it would not do to trust the working of these organs to us. 
We might be careless. 

8. What do muscles need, besides use or exercise, in order to 
grow strong ? Rest. 

9. Is it well to try to make only one set or a few sets ot muscles 
strong ? No ; we should try to be strong all over. 

10. What will weaken the muscles so that they can not work as 
they should ? Idleness, too hard work, smoking, drinking of alco- 
holic liquors, of much tea and coffee, eating too much, and living in- 
doors most of the time. 




LESSON XIV. 

Rest. 

OW are you to make your mus- 
cles grow strong ? You say : 
" By work and rest. We use 
them in work and play, and in 
such exercises as calisthenics. " 
I am afraid if it were not for 
the calisthenic exercises which 
now-a-days are a part of the work in most schools, 
some children (those who don't like to work and 
play) would keep their muscles soft. Those children 
best develop their muscles, and at the same time 
their brains and hearts, who enter into their work 
and play as if they liked it — were real fond of both. 

2. I do not mean that you should always play the 
romping, lively games, such as " tag," " I spy," and 
" puss-in-the-corner " ; or such games as base-ball, 
cricket, hare and hounds, etc. ; or that you should 
ahvays do that kind of work which makes your mus- 
cles work the hardest, such as heavy lifting, pulling 
or pushing, or carrying big loads on your shoulders. 
No ; such work and play, continued for a long time 
each day, will surely make Jack a dull boy, for it 



REST. 



141 



will tire out his young muscles, and weaken them, 
even if it does not lay him up in bed sick. 

3. You know of children who have played very 
hard and long on a Saturday because it was a holi- 
day, and then, when they were tired and hungry, ate 
a good deal and very fast, and so could not go to 
church or Sunday-school, but had to lie in bed for 
two or three days. Such exercise is foolish. You ■ 
have heard of strong men who, because they were 
strong, thought they could do anything they wanted 
to with their bodies, and they kept on hour after hour, 
rowing, running, walking, or riding horseback very 
hard, until the muscles on the skeleton were so tired 
and weakened that some of them tore apart. So, suf- 
fering was the result, or, worse still, the overstrained 
hearts grew so tired that they stopped pumping the 
blood that had come into tUem, and the men died. 

4. Strongly and beautifully as we are made, we can 
not do everything we would like to. With exercise, 
as well as food, clothing, and bathing, we must be 
temperate. In certain trades only one set of mus- 
cles is mainly used ; those of the arms in making 
knife-blades, nails, and horseshoes, and those of the 
legs in sewing-machine w r ork and scroll-sawing. Some 
of the people working at these trades work so long 
and so hard, and take so few holidays, that they tire 
out the muscles of the arms or legs, tire their hearts, 
tire their whole bodies, and grow sad and sick. Every- 
body needs rest. 

5. What a good thing it is for children that there 



142 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



are some quiet games as well as the romping ones ; 

such games as " dolls' house," and " party," "button- 
button," etc. ! What a blessed 
thing it is for those who are 







compelled to work hard to support themselves and 
their families, that Sunday is a day of rest, and that 
there are holidays ! Children and grown people who 
do not enjoy their work and play, can not enjoy their 
Sundays and holidays as they should. 

6. One of the saddest sights I have ever seen was 
a number of little people from an institution, who 
had come to the sea-shore to spend a few days, who 
had not learned how to play, and who were not al- 
lowed to rest by sitting on the sand, for fear they 
might soil their aprons and dresses. They moved 
about with scarcely a smile on their faces, while other 
children about them were like so many young colts 



REST. 



H3 



in their friskiness. In the city home of these little old 
people they were obliged to be kept clean nearly 
all the time, so that they would be ready for visitors, 
and though they were taught little games and songs to 
go with them, when they played the games and sang 
the songs it seemed just like playing funeral. 

7. What do the quiet games do after we have 
romped ; of what use are Sundays and holidays, and 
change from one kind of work to another? All help 
to rest our muscles and our whole bodies. If the 
upper rooms of our busy hearts didn't get a chance 
to rest while the lower ones were emptying them- 
selves of blood, and if the lower ones didn't rest 
while the upper ones were working, our hearts would 
wear out very quickly, and very few of us would 
ever grow up to be men or women. 

8. When a man works very fast and long, he 
doesn't give his heart a chance to rest, and so the 
poor thing gives up in despair, and refuses to be 
driven so hard. The kind of rest the heart needs is 
a different sort of rest from that the stomach needs. 
The stomach wants several hours at a time before it 
begins to work over the food that the next meal 
brings into it, whereas the heart is content with a sec- 
ond here and a second there. And so I suppose it is 
with all parts of the body. One portion needs one 
form of resting-spell, another another form, because 

thev do different work. 

j 

9. There is no grumbling in health, either be- 
cause there are different kinds of labor or different 

10 



144 



HEALTH LESSONS, 



kinds of rest. In health all parts work together in 
harmony, obeying the master, the brain, and for one 
purpose, to make the body strong and well. It is 
because our muscles and entire bodies need rest as 
much as they need exercise, that if we care for our 
bodies as we should, we give them the opportunity 
to rest, for they can not rest unless we let them do so. 
Because human beings are far above the lower ani- 
mals in what they can think and do, God has given 
them the power of choosing for themselves what 
they will do, and sometimes they choose the wrong 
way. 

10. If we are wise, we will choose the right way, 
and so, for the sake of rest, mix in quiet games with 
romping ones. So, for the sake of rest, if we are tired 
of sitting, we will walk or have some calisthenics. 
If our brains are tired studying geography or his- 
tory, we will rest them by studying something en- 
tirely different. So change of work as well as change 
of play is restful. " Yes ; but what about Sundays and 
holidays ? " some one asks. " We can lie in bed and do 
nothing all day long, can't we, on these days ? " No, 
doing nothing all day long is not resting, but is being 
lazy. 

ii. The fact is, that people who look upon Sunday 
as a day for idleness, generally eat too much, or drink 
too much, or both, so that they don't feel like going 
to work on Monday ; whereas, if part of the day is 
spent in the house of God, or in doing good to others, 
how refreshed we are for our usual work on Monday ! 



REST. 



145 



Too many persons look upon Sundays, holidays, and 
half-holidays as opportunities for a carouse. How 
much more pleasure and strength might we have 
from holidays if all the members of each family would 
observe them together in a change of work, and in 
healthful recreation, or play ! 

12. Rest is so important for us that we get sleepy 
about the same time each evening, that is if we are 
healthy and take care of ourselves. The sand-man 
comes around about every night, piles the sleep-sand 
on our eyelids, and we go " nid-nodding," and, before 
we can say Jack Robinson, are on the way to dream- 
land. How quietly and sweetly healthy babies sleep, 
and the nearer our sleep can be like theirs the better, 
with no horrible dreams and nightmares to disturb 
us ; if dreams at all, none but pleasant ones ! Chil- 
dren who eat hearty and rich suppers or dinners at 
night, or who go to evening parties and eat even a 
little of everything on the table, don't as a rule sleep 
easily. Liquor-drinking and everything that makes 
people keep late hours, rob them of sleep and shorten 
life. 

13. " Early to bed and early to rise makes a man 
healthy, wealthy, and wise," is just as true now as it 
ever was. Every one of us should sleep, if possible, 
during the still and dark hours of night, and get up 
as soon as we wake. If we do this we rest and also 
save about two hours a day for work, and this means 
thirty days every year — just think of it! All about 
us we are taught that if living things are to be 



146 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



healthy, they should have quiet sleep. Most of the 
flowers fold their petals and their leaves curl up as 
night comes on.' Birds nestle down upon the branches, 
ruffle up their feathers all around them, and some- 
times put their heads under their wings. 

14. Puppies and kittens, and young animals every- 
where, lie close to their mothers for warmth and pro- 
tection while asleep, and little children are glad to 
cuddle down in their comfortable beds when the 
work and play of the day are over. But remember, 
children, that we can't enjoy rest and sleep unless first 
we have worked. It is work and never idleness 
which entitles us to rest. When you grow up, re- 
member how important it is to work in work-time, 
play in play-time, and rest in the rest-time. If you 
remember all this, you will do your own work well, 
you will help others to do theirs, and when you come 
to die, death will be only the long sleep, the rest 
from which you will enter upon a new life above. 




REST. 



For Recitation. 



147 



1. Is it very hard work and very hard play that is needed for 
health and strength ? No ; it is the work and play that we can do 
each day without tiring us out. 

2. What is one way of resting your tired body ? By using the 
brain in reading or even studying. 

3. How can you rest a tired brain ? By playing some game, 
especially an out-door game, or by working with the hands. 

4. Is there any other way of obtaining rest besides changing 
work or play ? Yes ; in quiet sleep. 

5. Who best enjoy rest ? Those who have done good work. 




LESSON XV. 

The Brain and the Nerves. 

'VERY house which contains a large 
family is likely to be in much dis- 
order, unless there is a head to the 
household, and unless the mem- 
bers of the family work and play 
together in harmony. In the 
house that each one of us lives 
in — that is, our body — there is a very large family — 
lungs, heart, stomach, liver, intestines, kidneys, blad- 
der, bones, muscles, eyes, and teeth. Besides all these 
there are hundreds of little glands which keep parts 
of the body moist, and thousands of little cells. Each 
organ and cell has its own work to do. As long as we 
are healthy, and try to keep ourselves so, all this large 
family work together harmoniously ; but if we are 
sick or don't take care of our health, there is dis- 
order; one member of the family does not work well, 
then another and another, and finally, unless order is 
restored, all of our machinery is disarranged, then 
stops, and we die. It is the doctor's business to tell 
people how to keep healthy, as well as to try to put 
their machinery in order when they are sick. 



THE BRAIN AND THE NERVES. 



149 




2. In our bodies the 
brain is the head of the 
house, and the nerves act 
as telephone or telegraph 
wires to carry messages 
from the brain to all parts 
of the body, and from one 
part of 
the body 
to anoth- 
er. With- 
out the 
brain and 
nerves 
the heart would 
not pump, the 
lungs would not 
take in or squeeze 
out air, and the 
other parts of the body 
would not do their 
work. The brain is 
at the very top of the 
body, in the strong 
a.vei bony box or skull. The 
outside of the brain is 
light, brownish - gray 
color, and looks something 
like an English walnut. The 
inside is smooth and white, 



150 HEALTH LESSONS. 

like blanc-mange. But if you could look at this white 
material under a microscope, you would find that it is 
made up of very many little fibers or threads, coming 
into or going out of the brain. 

3. From the under part of the brain there hangs 
down in the middle of what many call the " back- 
bone," a large, white, rounded cord called the spinal 
cord. It contains some of the nerve-fibers which go 
to and come from the brain, and as it hangs it looks 
something like a Chinaman's queue. In the center of 
the spinal cord there is a brownish material, like that 
on the outside of the brain. It may be said to look 
something like chocolate blanc-mange, but under the 
microscope, is found to be curiously-shaped cells. 
These cells, found not only in the spinal cord and 
the covering of the brain, but also in spots in the 
brain and elsewhere, are like so many telegraph or 
telephone stations, for in them one end of the nerves 
ends. 

4. This picture shows a section of the body, and you 
see half of the brain and spinal cord and some nerves 
connecting the nose, the tongue, and an eye with the 
brain. You see also a nerve and its branches in an 
arm, and coming off from the spinal cord you see 
nerves, which are shown cut off. These last went to 
and from the muscles of the arms, legs, and trunk — 
that is, to the muscles on the outside of the skeleton. 
In front of the spinal cord is a long nerve coming 
from the Brain, and sending branches to the throat, 
heart, stomach, and parts thereabout. It is so long, 



THE BRAIN AND THE NERVES. 151 

and goes to so many places, that it is called the wan- 
dering nerve. It has charge of the movements of some 
of the organs in the chest and abdomen, and holds 
the heart in check. 

5. The nerves which start from the gray matter 
in the brain or spinal cord, and go to various parts, 
are called nerves of motion — that is, nerves by which 
word from the brain or spinal cord is sent to the 
part to move. Those coming from the parts to 
the brain are nerves of sensation, or feeling — that is, 
nerves by which the parts tell the spinal cord or 
brain that they are tired, sick, hungry, or hurt. The 
use of all this you will see by-and-by. 

6. In the picture you also see some fine white 
threads or nerves which pass from the heart, stomach, 
kidney, and intestine, to little spots, or lumps arranged 
in a sort of chain, between the spinal cord and the 
wandering nerve. The spots should have been gray, 
for in reality they contain nerve-cells. It is through 
these delicate nerves and cells that the heart and 
blood-vessels are able to act. 

7. So faithfully do the nerves and cells work that, 
if we are in health, we do not ordinarily feel our stom- 
achs or our hearts move, and we know very little of 
how the machinery inside of us is working. How 
fortunate this is for us ! But if we get into the miser- 
able habit of feeling of our pulses, of watching how 
we breathe, and of paying too much attention to 
ourselves, we imagine all sorts of foolish things, and 
little by little the brain and the nerves grow weaker. 



152 HEALTH LESSONS. 

Then the members of the family begin to be dis- 
orderly and not to work in harmony, and we are very 
uncomfortable, to say the least. All this can happen, 
for the very delicate cells and nerves are connected 
with the larger nerves, and so with the brain. 

8. We know about things that happen both outside 
and inside of us, only when some nerve brings word 
to the brain, that is, reports to headquarters. It is 
the business of the brain — i. To think what is to be 
done, what is to be learned in the world ; 2. To re- 
member especially those things that are useful for us ; 
and, 3. To will or direct the body where to go and 
what to do. So the brain is the head of our house, 
and it makes a great difference to us what sort of 
brain we have. If we have a good brain we are clear- 
headed, and that means doing our own business well y 
and not interfering with other people's business. 

9. If the brain becomes muddled we are in a bad 
plight. There is nothing that so frequently muddles 
the brain as alcohol. Under its influence the brain 
gives wrong orders, and does not understand mes- 
sages sent to it. The person eats what he should not, 
sleeps where he ought not to, goes where he should 
not, and acts as he would not in his sober senses. He 
abuses his children, injures his wife, and even kills his 
best friend. Sometimes alcohol deadens the life of 
the brain, and produces deep, unnatural sleep, and 
the person is said to be dead-drunk. 

10. Whenever the doctor is called to attend any 
one in this condition, he must feel as if it would be 



THE BRAIN AND THE NERVES. 153 

better if the person were really dead ; for the doctor 
knows that the habit of drinking is such a strong one 
that the man will probably, as soon as he arouses 
from the sleep, go to drinking again and again, and 
so gradually destroy himself and cause misery among 
his friends. Sad as it is for a man to become a slave 
to drink, and for his brain to lose control of his body, 
it is sadder still for a woman or a child — as is some- 
times the case. Alcohol has such power that it pulls 
down the brightest and finest-looking people, as well 
as the stupid and bad-looking, and in both cases the 
brain thinks but little good, remembers but little good, 
and does but little good. 

11. Besides making the brain lose control of the 
different members of the household, alcohol inflames 
and weakens the members, the muscles, heart, lungs, 
etc., so that they can not work in harmony and obey 
the brain, and so disorder reigns. And surely, if the 
head of the house and the other members work against 
each other, the house must fall. Sometimes it is the 
stomach that gives out first, and refuses to digest even 
the simplest food ; sometimes the heart, instead of 
quietly and beautifully going on with its work day 
after day, begins to pump, now too fast, and then too 
slow ; or it may be that the kidneys refuse to strain 
away dead material, and the liver to dispose of the 
fat and other rich food. 

12. Tobacco is another thing which upsets the brain. 
With children especially, whose brains, as well as their 
muscles, bones, hearts, and other organs, are not de- 



154 HEALTH LESSONS. 

veloped, therefore not strong — anything like tobacco 
or alcohol (unless the latter is given as medicine by a 
careful physician) is very hurtful. For these things 
make the brain lose control over itself and the body, 
and start bad habits, which frequently lead to mis- 
ery and death, just at a time when loving parents 
and friends had hoped to see happiness, health, and 
honor. 

13. There are other things besides tobacco and 
alcohol which deaden the brain, and which are 
sometimes foolishly used by people to make them 
forget pain or worry ; but these things, though 
of great use as medicines when ordered by care- 
ful doctors, are poisonous by nature. Just as it is 
with alcohol, the frequent use of these things cre- 
ates a desire for more. The person can not resist 
the craving, and becomes an opium, chloral, chloro- 
form, or cocaine drunkard, of little use to himself or 
others, and puts himself lower than any beast of the 
field. 

14. Just as there are persons who will make for 
sale candies with alcohol in them, so there are drug- 
gists who will sell paregoric, cordials, and soothing- 
sirups, and cocaine-lozenges, without telling the buy- 
ers that the poison opium is in the paregoric, cordials, 
and sirups, or the poison cocaine in the lozenges. 
Children, as you grow older you will find that gen- 
erally the persons that sell liquor or poisonous candy, 
or poisonous drugs, do not themselves use them to any 
extent, for they know that the frequent use of such 



THE BRAIN AND THE NERVES. 



155 



^UBE, 



things " will steal the 
brains away." Another 
thing you will find, and 
that is, when such per- 
sons do use them they 
are not to be trusted any 
more than other people 
with muddled brains. So 
beware of doctors, drug- 
gists, candy -makers, sa- 
loon-keepers, and even 




~^~?mt t S<k 



ministers, if 
they are in 
the habit of 
using alcohol, opi- 
um, chloral, coca- 
ine, or anything that will 
stupefy the brain. 

15. Though I have 
tried to explain clearly to 
you what the brain and 



i 5 6 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



nerves are, and what they are for, perhaps you will 
have a better idea of them when we study together 
this picture. As in the other picture, only a few of 
the nerves can be shown. The artist has shown only 
the nerves, or, in the picture, the wires, that go from 
the brain to the muscles of one arm, and to the rooms 
occupied by the lungs, heart, stomach, and small in- 
testine, the liver, kidneys, and large intestine. 

1 6. In the head is the brain or superintendent. In 
his office, close by him, is a telegraphic apparatus, 
which he is using, and a cabinet with drawers, which 
hold a quantity of motion, thought, ideas — those 
things which some of the cells in the brain have 
charge of and store up for future use. Some of the 
wires that go from the telegraphic instrument you 
see. The cabinet of drawers and the very fine wires 
that go to the drawers, and to the internal organs, 
are not shown in the picture. You see the window 
or eye in the head through which the superintendent 
can look out, and by which is brought to him the 
knowledge of many beautiful pictures in the world 
about him. You see also the ear telephoning, we 
hope some good news, to the brain. 

17. In the throat you see the palate or janitor of 
the house, sending down food by a dumb-waiter to 
the stomach. Below the palate is the lungs, sending 
air with his bellows to all the other workers in the 
house, and getting his supply from out-of-doors, 
through the nose and windpipe, or air-shaft. The 
worker near him pumping so constantly and quietly 



THE BRAIN AND THE NERVES. 



157 



is the heart. In a room below these two busy work- 
ers are the stomach and small intestine, hard at work 
preparing the food that has been sent down through 
the gullet or food-tube, so that the other workers in 
the body as well as themselves shall have something 
to keep them strong and well. In another room, 
close by, is a workman, the liver, storing away food 
that is to be slowly used for fuel and strength. 

18. In the lower story of the house are important 
but frequently much neglected workmen, the large 
intestine and the kidneys, whose duty it is to carry 
refuse food and dead material out of the body. In 
the arm is a strong man who has charge of the 
muscles, which move the hand and fingers. At the 
ends of the fingers the artist has put little buttons — 
push-buttons as they are called — to represent the end- 
ing of the sensitive nerves in the skin. The sensitive 
nerves end in little knobs in almost every part of the 
skin, and so it is just as if there were really push-but- 
tons. If the knob is pressed upon or cut into, or any- 
thing hot or cold touches it, a sensation travels in- 
ward to one of the brain-cells, and an order goes out 
to the muscles to move the part away, so that it will 
not be injured. 

19. I wish the artist could have shown in the 
picture other workers, the skin, bones, glands, etc. 
Of course, none of you must think that there are real 
live men in the body. In the picture the workmen 
represent the organs. They can be controlled by 
the superintendent, through wires or nerves, some 



158 HEAL TH LESSONS. 

of which you see leading from the superintendent's 
rooms to the rooms the workmen are in. When 
the brain looks out of his windows, the eyes, and sees 
a ball which some one has thrown coming toward 
the head, he says the head must dodge that ball, or 
it will get hurt, so he telegraphs to the drawer which 
has charge of the muscles of the head and neck, 
" Make those muscles move quickly, or that ball will 
give them a thump ! " The drawer sends out word 
to the muscles, and the head dodges the ball. 

20. The stomach sends word to the brain that it is 
getting hungry, as are all the workers. So the brain 
telegraphs to that part of the cabinet that moves the 
legs and arms and jaws and gullet, " Send the legs to 
market and home again, tell the arms and hands to 
get something ready to eat, tell the grinders to grind 
the food well, and then the gullet to swallow it 
slowly, for the stomach and the other fellows below 
are hungry, and must not be trifled with." The body 
is in the midst of bad air, the lungs tell the brain that 
it is getting to be hard work to breathe, and that he 
is becoming drowsy, and is afraid he is being poi- 
soned. The moment the superintendent receives this 
message, if he is wise, he immediately sends word to 
the muscles of the legs, through a drawer in the 
cabinet, to hurry the body away from such air, and 
to the muscles of the chest to pull the chest out and 
in faster, so that the lungs can more quickly breathe 
in what pure air there may be, and more readily 
send out bad air. 



THE BRAIN AND THE NERVES. 159 

21. Now, children, you must see by this time how 
important it is that the superintendent and all the 
other workers should be calm and cool, and know 
what they are about. If the superintendent or mas- 
ter-workman is muddled by drink or anything else, 
he can not superintend as he ought ; he doesn't see 
dangers, smell, taste, hear, or feel dangers, and can not 
send correct telegrams to the workmen, or know 
what they mean when they send word to him. If 
the heart or lungs is muddled, he works by fits and 
jerks, and so fails to send enough blood or air to the 
other workers, and then their health fails. 

22. If the stomach or small intestine is muddled, 
the food is not properly prepared, and the workmen 
are poorly fed. If the liver is thickened, and so can't 
work well, he fails to store up food, and do his other 
work, so that soon his room becomes cluttered up and 
the body loses some of its warmth, the tongue be- 
comes coated, and then the person the liver belongs 
to is said to be bilious. If the kidneys and large in- 
testine don't do their work and get rid of the refuse, 
all the workmen in the body become poisoned. 

23. Though, fortunately for us, most of the work 
in the body is carried on without our knowledge, 
still the healthy brain stands ever ready to help. 
When we almost lose our footing in the street by 
stepping on a banana or orange skin, word is sent 
through push-buttons in the feet to the cells in the 
spinal cord, and the muscles of the leg very rapidly 
do as they are told, attempt to brace us up to keep 

11 



160 HEALTH LESSONS. 

us from falling; but, if we don't easily regain our 
footing, word is sent from the foot up to the brain 
through the spinal cord, asking for assistance, and 
then other muscles besides those of the leg are told 
to assist those of the leg. So, whether we know or 
do not know of the work that goes on in the body, it 
is important to have a well-trained brain, and that 
means to have self-control. 

24. We can not in a short time learn to have self- 
control, but we can keep on trying and trying until we 
do learn. Don't always cry or whine when you are 
asked to go on an errand ; don't get into the habit of 
fretting because you can not have what you want; 
do not worry for fear that you will be late at school ; 
do not scold about little things. Simply find out 
what your duty is, and try to do it, " and if at first 
you don't succeed, try, try again." In this way you 
will make your brain and nerves strong, and put them 
under control, and then you have accomplished much. 
You should use your brain, nerves, and muscles every 
day, then they will grow strong sooner than they will 
if used by fits and jerks — that is, spasmodically. 

25. In such simple games as " Simon says thumbs 
up, Simon says wiggle-waggle," one child will not 
lose his temper, and will play better than another, 
because he has more self-control. If, as he grows 
older, he continues to exercise his self-control, his 
superintendent becomes stronger and he will be best 
able to do the hard work of life. The person with 
but little self-control is nervous and irritable, or as a 



THE BRAIN AND THE NERVES, 161 

little child once said, " in a hurry all over," ever 
ready to whine, cry, laugh, scold, or fret, but seldom 
ready to do the work he has to do quietly and with- 
out fuss. To be cheerful and hopeful, and to do good to 
others as zuell as for ourselves, are three very good 
ways of encouraging self-control, and it will do you 
all good to study this motto : 

" Look up and not down ; 

Look forward and not back ; 

Look out and not in, 

And lend a hand." 
26. Before we close this lesson on the nervous 
system, there are three things to which I want to call 
your attention : 1. Don't ever hit any one on the head, 
or push any one down so that the head strikes against 
anything hard ; such a blow or fall may injure the 
brain and nerves. 2. Do not punch, strike, or kick 
any one in the abdomen, for a blow there may injure 
delicate nerves and cells, or cause death. 3. Remem- 
ber that most animals feel pain, and that they know 
what kindness is. 



For Recitation. 

1. What is necessary in a house if everything is to work 
smoothly ? That there should be a good head to the house, and 
that the members of the family should work in harmony. 

2. What is the head of our house called ? The brain. What 
other name has this head ? The superintendent. 

3. What are the members of the family ? The heart, stomach, 
and every part of the body that has work to do. 



1 62 HEALTH LESSONS. 

4. What are the duties of the superintendent? To think, to 
remember, and to act. 

5. How can he do all this ? By means of nerves, which carry 
messages to him from all parts of the body, and from him to all 
parts. 

6. Can the brain think, remember, and act well if it is dis- 
turbed or not clear? No, for it will not know as it should what 
messages are brought to it, or what messages it should send to the 
parts or workers in the body. 

7. Can the workmen act in harmony if they are disturbed ? No, 
for they will be unfit to tell the brain when they need more food or 
air, or are sore or ill. 

8. What especially affects the brain and nerves, so that they 
don't work well, and so cause disorder and disease? Alcohol, 
tobacco, chloral, chloroform, cocaine. 

9. By what other means can you weaken your brain and 
nerves ? By acquiring the bad habit of being peevish, of crying, 
of being selfish, of becoming slaves to our appetites, passions, and 
desires. 

10. How can you strengthen your brain and nerves ? By being 
contented, looking on the bright side of things, and learning to live 
for others as well as ourselves. 




LESSON XVI. 

"The Senses. 

HE aches, pains, discomfort, and bod- 
ily distress which we have when we 
do not take care of our bodies are 
called sensations. These are conveyed 
to the brain or superintendent by the 
"jp.V sensitive nerves. I trust that you 

will so take care of your bodies that 
you will have very few if any such sensations. But 
there are sensations which come to the brain through 
specially arranged nerves and organs — which sensa- 
tions, I trust, will be enjoyed by you. They are called 
special sensations, or special senses, or sometimes 
only " the senses," and are generally spoken of as five 
in number — touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. 
The parts or organs through which they act are the 
skin, tongue, nose, ears, and eyes. 

These organs, with their nerves, are so important 
that they are called " the gateways of knowledge, " 
" the working-tools of the brain," and the more care- 
ful we are of them, and the better we train them, the 
more happiness and comfort we shall have in life. 
2. There are children and grown people who do 



164 HEALTH LESSONS. 

not use their eyes to see the beautiful things about 
them, only the disagreeable things. They do not try 
to hear cheerful and pleasant sounds, only clashing, 
discord, and bad language. They have noses, but 
they do not learn as they journey through life that 
the agreeable odors are as numerous as the dis- 
agreeable ones. They have nerves in the skin to feel 
with, but they blunt their sensibility by rough usage, 
and so can only feel the roughest of objects. Though 
they have tongues, they will persist in wrong habits 
of eating and drinking, and so destroy or dull the 
taste for healthful, harmless, and delicious food. 

If the organs of special sense don't report cor- 
rectly and frequently to the brain what is seen, 
smelled, heard, tasted, or felt, the superintendent can 
not store away knowledge in his cabinet, to take out 
and use whenever he feels like it. He will spend 
most of his time in looking after himself, and so will 
be a very selfish fellow. 

3. Touch. — The sense of touch is the one by 
which we learn whether anything is large or small, 
square, round, or oval; whether it is soft or hard. 
This is accomplished generally through the fingers — 
by means of the little push-buttons, or ends of sensi- 
tive nerves — though we can feel with the tip of the 
tongue, and other parts of the body. Persons with- 
out hands may, by frequent use, develop the sensi- 
tiveness of the muscles and skin of the toes, so that 
with the toes they can pick up very small objects, 
sew, write, and even take articles out of their pockets. 



THE SENSES. 



165 



4. The sense of touch becomes very sensitive 
with many blind people, who learn to read easily by 
passing the fingers over raised letters, to play the 
most difficult music on the piano, violin, or harp, to 
recognize people by feeling of their faces, and to tell 
what the various colors are in a shawl. It becomes 
impaired when the fingers are cold most of the time, 
or have been frost-bitten, or when they are roughened 
by dirt or clothes-washing. To keep the hands in 
good condition to use tools, to sew, write, draw, and 
to do readily many things we want to do, they should 
be frequently washed with soft water and a mild 
soap, or with oat- or corn-meal, and 
the finger-nails should be kept neat- 
ly trimmed. 

5. Taste. — The upper surface of 
the sides, by means 
fhich come to them, 
convey the sen- 
sation of taste to 
the brain. Look 
at some one's 
tongue through 
a magnifying- 
glass, and you 
will see hun- 
dreds of vel- 
vety points, in 
many of which there are little nerves of taste. If the 
tongue is not clean, and these points become coated, 




1 66 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



as they generally do when you are ill, or when you 
have eaten too rich food, you lose your appetite for 
good healthy food. When the tongue becomes coated 
or furred, the little points or taste-buds, as they are 
called, are loaded down so much sometimes that the 
fur can be fairly scraped off. The use of the tooth- 
brush, and the frequent rinsing of the mouth with 
water, or with water with one fourth lime-water add- 
ed, will be of service in getting rid of the fur. 

6. Not only should the tongue be clean, if we are 
to taste well, but the food must be broken up, and at 
least partly dissolved. These things will be done if 
the food is thoroughly chewed, and mingled with 
the saliva by rolling motions of the tongue. If you 
glance at this picture of the tongue you will see how 
many muscles there are ready to move the tongue 
about. Frequent smoking and the use of alcoholic 
drinks, chewing tpbacco, chewing-gum, mustard, 

sauces, and highly-season- 
ed food, tend to dull the 
taste, and so much of the 
pleasure of eating is dimin- 
ished. 

7. Smell. — The sense of 
smell is most acute in the 
upper part of the nostrils, 
where the nerves of smell 
are mainly distributed. 

The inside of one half of the nose, r™ r -, ,, „ 

Iherefore, to smell well, 
delicate as well as strong odors, it is necessary that 




THE SENSES. 1 67 

the nostrils should be clean, moist, and open, so that 
we can quietly but thorougly sniff. Picking of the 
nose, besides being a dirty habit, is liable to inflame 
the nose, and so cause it to be blocked up. The 
breathing in of dust, tobacco-smoke, and other impu- 
rities through the nostrils, tends to deaden the sense 
of smell, and this result is a great pity, for a sensitive 
sense of smell not only gives us great enjoyment with 
flowers, but warns us of disagreeable and dangerous 
odors. 

8. Somehow, the sense of taste and the sense of 
smell seem to be related to one another. We pity 
the poor children who flatten their noses against the 
windows of restaurants and bakers' shops in their 
eagerness to see the things which smell so good, for 
we know that their mouths water when the savory 
odors from an oyster or beef stew or from hot ginger- 
bread reaches their nostrils. 

9. In some persons and beasts the sense of smell 
is very acute. It is said that some of the South 
American Indians can tell of the approach of stran- 
gers by the sense of smell. Dogs not only track per- 
sons, by the sense of smell, over the ground and 
through the snow, as the great dogs of Mount St. 
Bernard do, but the Esquimau dogs detect by smell 
food which is stored up a long distance away, and 
thus have saved their masters' lives. 

10. Hearing. — By the sense of hearing we know 
of sounds whether they are high or low, harsh or 
sweet ; we recognize the singing of birds, the rus- 



1 68 



HEALTH LESSONS. 




O C, outer canal ; T C, inner canal ; B, 
bones of the ear ; N, nerve of hear- 
ing. 



tling of leaves, the murmur of brooks, the noise of 
great waterfalls, and the music from various kinds of 

instruments. Our 
ears are arranged 
somewhat like the 
large, open ends of 
trumpets, the better 
to catch the sounds. 
The hole seen in each 
ear is the commence- 
ment of a canal (O C) 
which goes down- 
ward and inward in- 
to the skull for about 
an inch. Across the 
lower and inner end is stretched a thin membrane, 
generally called the drum of the ear, but really it is 
but a drum-head. Attached to the inner side of this 
drum-head, and reaching across a little room -like 
space to the other drum-head farther in, is a little 
bony chain, composed of three bones (B), which from 
their shape are called the hammer, the anvil, and the 
stirrup. 

ii. Sounds come to the ear in waves of air. The 
waves strike against the drum-head at the bottom of 
the canal, and cause it to move ; this motion makes 
the chain of bones move, and their motion, because 
the bone farthest in is attached to another drum- 
head which fits into a sort of a window in a room 
connected with some bony canals, causes this drum- 



THE SENSES. 169 

head to move. In these canals in the skull the nerve 
of hearing is spread out in a little fluid to keep it 
from being injured. 

12. When the inner drum-head moves, the fluid 
moves, and so sounds are conveyed to the nerve of 
hearing (N), and by it to the brain. Leading from 
the room where the ear-bones are, down into the 
throat, is a little tube (I C), by which air is admitted. 
If it were not for some such arrangement as this, 
waves of sound would strike against the drum-head 
too violently, or we should hear sounds indistinctly 
or disagreeably. If this tube is stopped up by saliva, 
or as the result of a sore throat, the sounds we hear 
are muffled or unpleasant. If the canal leading from 
the ear down to the outer drum-head is blocked up, 
as with dirt or ear-wax, we are more or less deaf. If 
the little bones of the ear can not move easily, we are 
likely to be very deaf. 

13. Now you see how important it is to keep the 
ears and all parts connected with them clean and free 
from injury. Very few of us can prick up our ears 
as many animals do, the better to hear sounds, but we 
can keep our ears clean, by gently washing them or 
sponging them. Do not use hair-pins or other hard 
substances to remove dirt, for with them you may 
make a hole through the drum-head, and so spoil 
your hearing. Some people wear cotton in the 
ears for fear of catching cold. It not only looks 
badly, but tends to make the ears tender. Blows on 
the side of the head or over the ears may injure the 



170 HEALTH LESSONS. 

hearing, and even break the drum-head. Listening 
at key-holes, or at doors slightly ajar is not only bad 
manners but is a dangerous act ; the currents of air 
reaching the ear in this way may cause earache, in- 
flammation, and much suffering. 

14. It is a dangerous trick, when a person's head 
is under water, as is often the case when boys are 
bathing in a pond or stream, for any one to strike to- 
gether under the water shells or stones, for the sharp 
sounds produced may be conveyed so strongly by the 
waves of water against the drum as to cause deafness. 
It is dangerous, also, as well as cruel, for one person 
to come up suddenly behind another and make a 
loud noise directly into the ear. 

15. Sight. — The sense of sight is the most won- 
derful of all the senses, for through it we receive 
ideas of light, color, size, shape, distance, and the 
motion of objects or things. Each eye is rounded, 
and about the size of an ordinary large marble or 
alley, and is in a sort of bony pocket in the front 
of the skull, where it rests in cushions of fat. It is 
further protected from jolting and other injuries by 
the eyelids. These we can close to keep out too 
much light, and the eyelashes or " eye-winkers " serve 
to keep out dust and insects. The eyebrows are not 
only placed where they are to improve our looks, but 
to keep perspiration from going into the eyes. The 
eyes have been likened to windows, for they let in the 
light, but they are more than windows, for the things 
we look at are pictured through them on the brain. 



THE SENSES. 



171 



16. Light and the reflection of objects fall upon 
the front of the eye (c), pass through it, and through 
a little room, filled with a watery fluid ; then through 
the little round black hole called the pupil ; then 
through a clear, glass-like body, shaped something 
like an cgg y and called the crystalline lens (c I) ; then 
through a clear, jelly-like fluid (v), which fills the 
larger room in each eye. Having passed through 
this room, the light and the reflection of an object 
fall upon the thin lining coat of this larger chamber. 
This coat is called the retina, and is connected with 
the optic nerve, or the nerve of sight. Thus we learn 
about light and pictures of objects. 

17. Now you understand, I hope, how it is that 
the person who uses his eyes and sees as many pleas- 
ant things as he can, 

will be able to store 
up in the brain a 
large number of 
beautiful pictures to 
look at and think 
over at his leisure. 
Some one has said 
that " the way to be 
healthy, wealthy, 
and wise, is to shut 
your mouth and 

open your eyes " — that is, don't get into the habit of 
talking too much, but do get into the habit of observ- 
ing. The fact is, each eye is somewhat like a photog- 




172 HEALTH LESSONS. 

rapher's camera, with its clear lenses to transmit the 
picture, its dark chamber to absorb any excess of 
light, and its sensitive plate to receive the picture. 

1 8. When we look into an eye we look through 
the pupil, but see nothing but black — for we really 
see, through the thin lining of the eye, the dark coat 
beyond. The pupil is in the center of a movable 
curtain, called the iris, which is gray in some eyes, 
blue, black, or brown in others. When a very bright 
light strikes the eye this curtain so contracts that the 
pupil is made smaller. In the dark the pupil en- 
larges. You can see this change in the pupil if you 
look at the front of the eye of a friend, shading the 
eye with your hand and then taking your hand 
away. 

19. You have now studied enough about human 
eyes to know that they are not at all like the eyes of 
dolls, and that care must be taken of them if we are 
to keep them in good condition. Don't stare at the 
sun or other very bright light, for you may ruin your 
eyes if you do. Do not wipe your eyes with a cloth 
or towel that has been used by a person with sore 
eyes, for fear that you may have sore eyes too. Don't 
get into the habit of looking cross-eyed; if you do, it 
may be impossible for your eyes to straighten them- 
selves without the aid of the surgeon. Do not read 
while lying down or while riding in a street-car. Do 
not read, sew, write, or do any work at night which 
requires good eye-sight, unless the light from lamp or 
gas is bright and clear. If your eyes are weak, and 



THE SEXSES. 



i/3 



your doctor tells you that it is best for you to wear 
spectacles or eye-glasses, do so — don't be ashamed. 



For Recitation. 

i. How do ordinary sensations or impressions differ from those 
of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight? The last named are 
special sensations, or senses. 

2. Why are they so named ? Because they work through or- 
gans quite differently arranged from those through which ordinary 
sensations are conveyed. 

3. Why are the organs of ^special sense sometimes spoken of as 
the five gateways of knowledge ? Because through the skin, 
tongue, nose, ears, and eyes we come into contact with things 
outside of our bodies, and so learn about them. 

4. What results from an improper use of the senses ? The loss 
for us of much pleasure and information. 

5. Of what use is the sense of touch ? By it we appreciate the 
size, shape, and consistency of objects. 

6. Of what use is the sense of taste ? It tells us when food is 
palatable. 

7. What will mar this sense ? Sickness or the use of alcoholic 
drinks, of chewing tobacco, of highly-seasoned food. 

8. Of what use is the sense of smell? By it we distinguish 
odors. Thus pleasure is increased and dangers avoided. 

9. What is necessary for good hearing? To keep the ears 
clear and clean, and not to injure the parts. 

10. Which is the most important of the senses? Sight, for by 
it we receive ideas of light, and the color, size, shape, distance, and 
motion of objects. 




HERE WE ARE AGAIN. 



APPENDIX. 

ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, AND POISONS, 



12 



LESSON XVII. 




Accidents, Injuries, and Poisons. 

VERY child, I take it, has at some time 
or other pretended to be sick, so that he 
or she might have some sugar pills, or 
has limped about with a cane, or put his 
arm in a handkerchief, as in a sling, and 
made a call upon one of his playfellows 
who was the surgeon. Now, this is all 
play ; but, really, any one of you may 
hurt or injure yourself at any time, and if the injury is a 
slight one, or if the accident is one that ought to be attended 
to at once, it is well to know how to do it. Remember that 
I said a slight injury, for you can not and should not expect 
to be doctor enough to always manage without a real doc- 
tor, and, if you try it, you will often do a great injury to 
yourself, or the person you are trying to help. 

2. But there are many things which you can do, such 
as stopping the bleeding from a slight cut, arousing per- 
sons when they have fainted, relieving the pain of a burn, 
from hot water, a lighted match, or the steam from a tea- 
kettle, or giving something that will make one vomit what 
is believed will poison him and make him ill if left in the 
stomach. But to do these things, or others that will be told 



i 7 8 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



of, you must not get excited. When an accident does hap- 
pen, think for a moment what is to be done, then do it as 
well as you can, but don't cry, wring your hands, or make 
a fuss, or wonder why somebody don't do something. Do 
it yourself as quietly and quickly as you can, unless, of 
course, there is someone to help who knows how better than 
you do, and who will help. In fact, it is a great deal better 
to go away if you can not help in case of accident, than it 
is to form part of a crowd about the injured person, for 
crowds shut out the air, and hinder those who are trying to 
be of use. Remember, whenever you are tempted to join a 
crowd, but can do no good, you are in the way. 

3. Bandaging. — One of the first things you ought to 
know is how to bind up or bandage a part of the body that 




has been injured, either to help to stop bleeding or to keep 
torn parts in place, or as means of readily applying a lotion 



ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, AND POISONS. 179 

or wash. This picture shows how a three-cornered piece of 
cloth, or a handkerchief, folded into that shape, can be ap- 
plied as a bandage to almost any part of the body. 

4. Bleeding. — If you remember how small an amount of 
blood will make a large stain, you will not be likely to be 
frightened when you see a bleeding wound. The fact is, 
that most of the bleeding you will see will come from small 
wounds, in which only capillary blood-vessels are injured, 
and such bleeding can generally be easily stopped by a few 
moments' pressure with the tip of the finger, or by a small 
pad, either over the wound or about its edges. Such press- 




ure allows the blood to clot in the vessels, and so stops the 
bleeding. A piece of glazed card or of common brown 
paper held firmly on the cut, or wrapped about it, is better 




than the thin sticking-plaster which is frequently used, and 
becomes easily soaked with blood, and does not hold in 



i8o 



HEALTH LESSONS. 



place. If the bleeding continues in spite of the pressure 
you have applied, large blood-vessels probably have been 
injured, and it is then necessary to tie a handkerchief or a 
strip of cloth, or a piece of cord, about the limb above the 
injury, and twist it tight with a piece of wood, pressing, if 
possible, mainly over the large vessels that are injured be- 
low. In all cases where the bleeding has to be so con- 
trolled, the doctor should be sent for as soon as possible, as 
he may have to actually tie the vessels. 

5. When the bleeding is controlled, and any dirt about 
the injury has been washed away, and the parts dried, if the 

injury is a cut and 
not a torn wound, 
apply little strips of 
surgeon's rubber, or 
adhesive plaster, 
across the cut, so 
as to bring the sides 
together, as in the 
picture. Over the 
plaster place a small 
pad, and over this 
a bandage. Leave 
the plaster in place 
for several days, until the edges of the cut are united, then 
remove the strips gradually and carefully. If the wound is 
a torn one, after the bleeding ceases, and the dirt and the 
blood-stains are washed away, and the parts dried, apply 
and keep in place on the wound until the doctor calls, 
two thicknesses of linen cloth soaked in water, carbolic 
acid, and glycerine, in proportions as follows : Carbolic 




ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, AND POISONS. 181 

acid, ten drops ; glycerine, four teaspoonfuls ; water, one 
pint. 

6. Nose-bleed is very seldom dangerous. Keep in the 
cool air, remain quiet, either sitting in a chair with the 
head inclined forward, so as to let the blood drip into a 
cup, or lie down with the head raised. Apply a cold key 
or cloth to the back of the neck, snuff cold water up into 
the nose, or water with a pinch of powdered alum in it. 
These measures generally are sufficient. 

7. Fainting. — If any one becomes faint — that is, weak and 
insensible, or unconscious, no matter whether from fright, 
loss of blood, or any other cause — it is best to put the person 
flat down on his back, allow the air to reach him, but keep 
his feet warm. Hold for a moment or two, and from time 
to time, under the nostrils, some spirits of camphor or some 
weak ammonia, or, if the person can swallow, carefully give 
internally, in water, every five or ten minutes until the pa- 
tient revives, two or four drops of aromatic spirits of ammo- 
nia, or brandy or whisky, if the aromatic ammonia can not 
be obtained. 

8. Bruises and Sprains. — Children receive these fre- 
quently. The most important part of the treatment is to 
keep the bruised or sprained part quiet. Next apply, if pos- 
sible, a flannel bandage, and keep it soaked, until pain has 
disappeared, with as hot water as can be comfortably borne, 
having put into the water liquid extract of witch-hazel or 
tincture of arnica, or even plain alcohol or bay-rum, in the 
proportion of one tablespoonful to the pint of water. 

9. Burns and Scalds. — Children are liable to be burned 
from playing with matches, bonfires, fire-crackers, and gun- 
powder, and by blowing out lighted lamps ; to be scalded 



1 82 HEALTH LESSONS. 

by spilling upon the body a cup of hot tea or coffee, a plate 
of hot soup, or by playing with a steaming tea-kettle, or 
near the stove upon which fat is boiling for cooking pur- 
poses. If a person's clothes catch fire, lay him on the floor 
and wrap about him as quickly as possible, and so smother 
the fire, any woolen thing, such as a blanket, drugget, or 
piece of carpet. Do not use cotton or linen, for they catch 
fire too easily. Keep the fire away from the face if possible. 
After the fire is extinguished, or when a person is scalded, 
gently but quickly remove the clothing, cutting it if neces- 
sary. Apply to the injured skin, and keep on till healing 
is effected, strips of linen cloth soaked in carbolic acid, gly- 
cerine, and olive-oil — that is, one small teaspoonful of the 
first, two tablespoonfuls of the second, and a pint of the 
third, or " carbolized vaseline " (to be obtained at the drug- 
store) can be used. If neither can be obtained, try a thin 
paste of flour and water. The cloths should not be allowed 
to dry. Cotton-batting should not be applied to a burned 
surface. 

10. Fits or Convulsions. — When a person has a fit, all that 
you can do, or ought to do, is to put him in as comfortable 
a position as possible, upon the floor, ground, or bed, so 
that he will not be injured by striking against any hard sub- 
stance. Allow plenty of air to come to him, and, if there 
is danger of the tongue being bitten, try to put a cork or 
the knobbed end of a clothes-pin between the teeth, but 
look out for your own fingers while doing this. If the per- 
son does not recover from the fit in a few minutes, send for 
a doctor. 

ii. Sunstroke or Heatstroke. — The heat of the sun or of 
the kitchen, laundry, factory, or workshop may be so great 



ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, AND POISONS. 183 

that some persons exposed to it grow weak and faint, and 
perhaps vomit. If the skin becomes cold, and the face pale, 
keep the head cool, admit air to the person, apply warmth 
to the feet by bottles of hot water, or by heated bricks, and 
try to give internally aromatic ammonia, or an alcoholic 
stimulant (see Fainting). If the skin is hot and the face 
flushed, give plenty of air, and apply to the head cloths 
wrung out in very cold water. Keep the person quiet for 
some time after he has begun to feel better. 

12. Suffocation. — The back part of the mouth of a child, 
also the larynx and windpipe, are small, and if the inner 
portion of these parts swell much, or anything blocks them 
up, a child is more likely to strangle or suffocate than a 
grown person. Swallowing by mistake any irritating sub- 
stance, such as a strong acid, carbolic acid, etc., will cause 
the parts to swell and inflame. All that you can do in such 
cases is to give freely to drink, milk, the white of eggs, or 
olive-oil. If the suffocation results from breathing in gas, 
substitute as soon as possible plenty of fresh, pure air. Chil- 
dren are not only suffocated but sometimes killed by pieces 
of food, small coin, jack-stones, buckles, or marbles, carried 
in the mouth, or from the toys, known as squeakers, suddenly 
and unconsciously being sucked into the throat, as the child 
is running or playing about. 

13. Candy sold as April-fool candy, and containing 
tacks and other dangerous things, should be avoided. Be- 
ware of such candy, and of running or playing about with 
marbles or such things in your mouth. In case the person 
is choking, there is a struggle for breath, the face becomes 
bluish and swollen. Instantly put your forefinger into the 
throat as far down as you can, and attempt to hook out the 



184 HEALTH LESSONS. 

foreign body. If it is a crumb of bread or a piece of food, 
sometimes a swallow of water or a sharp patting on the back 
will get rid of it. If the substance is not brought out by 
any of these means, hold the person up if possible by the 
heels, at the same time that the back is smartly thumped. 
In cases of suffocation the sooner relief is attempted the 
better. Send for a doctor, but do not wait for him. 

14. Stings and Slivers. — Bees, hornets, and other insects, 
if irritated, are apt to sting. In carelessly handling pieces 
of wood, especially wood that is partly decayed, or if thought- 
lessly putting the hands into barrels and boxes, slivers of 
wood may run under the finger-nails or under the skin, and 
cause much pain. Small slivers, as well as the stings of 
insects can best be detected through a magnifying- glass. 
Remove the sliver or sting with a fine pair of forceps, or 
the point of a needle, then allay any pain that may exist 
with applications of carbolized vaseline, weak ammonia- 
water, or simply starch-paste, or thin mud. If a sliver is 
soft and not easily removed, especially from under the nail, 
do not persist in trying, as you may make your skin sore 
and break the sliver. Let a doctor remove it. 

15. Foreign Bodies in the Nose, Ears, and Eyes. — By a 
foreign body is meant something which does not belong in 
the place in which it is found. 

In the Nose. — Just as children will thoughtlessly carry 
things in the mouth, and, without meaning to, will suck them 
into the throat, so beans and peas, shoe and glove buttons, 
put into the nose may be snuffed up out of easy reach, 
causing discomfort and pain, and must be removed. Some- 
times this can be done by forcibly blowing the nose, or by 
sneezing caused by tickling the inside of the nose with a 



ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, AND POISONS. 185 

feather, or by the use of a pinch of snuff. If these means 
do not answer, and the foreign body can be seen, bend the 
rounded end of a hair-pin and gently attempt to hook out 
the foreign body. Rough or prolonged efforts at removal 
tend to seriously injure the nose. 

16. In the Ear. — Some children foolishly put beans and 
other things into the ears, or flies or other insects find their 
way in and can not get out. Never try to remove any of 
these things by a bent hair-pin, or hook or probe of any 
kind, unless they are very near the opening, as you may 
injure the delicate drum-head. Inject into the ear plenty 
of warm water from a rubber syringe, holding the top of 
the ear upward and backward, and placing the point of the 
syringe in the upper part of the external canal, so that the 
stream of water can get behind the object and sweep it out. 
If an insect is in the ear, first drown it with a few drops of 
warm oil, left in the ear for a half-hour or hour. 

17. In the Eye. — Anything that enters the eyeball had 
better be removed by the doctor, but dust and other parti- 
cles that get under the eyelids can frequently be removed 
without the doctor's aid. If inside the lower lid, evert the 
lid, and with a fine camers-hair brush, the rolled end of a 
clean, fine handkerchief, or a piece of soft sponge, remove 
the object, and then put into the eye three or four drops of 
good castor or olive oil, if the foreign body has excited red- 
ness. If the object is inside the upper lid, or on the eye, 
and not easily removed, as above — 1. Blow the nose hard; 
this may bring the object within reach. 2. Take the eye- 
lashes between the thumb and forefinger of the right or left 
hand, raise the upper lid outward, then bring it down so 
that it overlaps the lower lid. Now loosen the hold on the 




1 86 HEALTH LESSONS. 

lashes, and with the forefinger gently press the upper lid 
downward and inward toward the nose. This procedure 
may push out the object or bring it within reach. 3. Close 
the upper lid and hold a large nee- 
dle, or a tooth-pick, or a thin pen- 
holder, or lead - pencil, firmly but 
gently across the upper portion of 
the lid. With the free hand turn 
the lid by the lashes over this bar, 
so that you can examine its inner 
surface. Remove the object, and 
use castor or olive oil if necessary. 

18. Fractures or Broken Bones. — If, after a fall or blow 
or other injury, a person can not move a limb, or part of a 
limb, probably either one or more bones are broken, or out 
of place. All that you can do is to make the person as 
comfortable as possible till the doctor comes, and to try to 
keep meddlesome persons away. If the injured part jerks, 
and so causes pain, or if it becomes necessary to move the 
person, it will be well to pad with cotton or handkerchiefs 
two or three pieces of light wood or stiff cardboard on one 
side, and bind about the part. (See bandage-picture, left 
arm of man.) 

19. Poisons. — Many children are so curious to know how 
a thing feels, tastes, or smells, that they will handle things 
they should not, and will smell or taste of the contents of 
bottles, boxes, baskets, or other packages, that they may see 
in their own houses, or in the houses of friends, or that may 
be found in vacant lots. The result is that every once in a 
while we hear of a child being poisoned, and sometimes so 
badly that it dies. A good rule to observe is 4< to touch not, 



ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, AND POISONS. 187 

taste not, handle not" anything that you do not know about, 
or anything that is used for medicine, or that you are told 
may not be used with safety. 

20. Alcohol, kept in the house for use in the nursery- 
lamp, and for polishing purposes, has been drunk uninten- 
tionally, and has severely poisoned children. Any of the 
drinks which contain alcohol are dangerous drinks for chil- 
dren, and children have been poisoned (that is, made drunk) 
by what is called oftentimes a small amount of wine or beer. 
The ancients represented the danger that lurks in an alco- 
holic drink by a serpent coiled up in the bottom of a drink- 
ing-cup. 

21. Opium, though a valuable medicine, is a poison, and 
should not be used except by the advice of a faithful doc- 
tor. It is a part of laudanum, paregoric, most soothing- 
sirups, and washes or liniments for rheumatism, neuralgia, 
or sprains. 

22. Oxalic acid, another poison, is a white powder look- 
ing something like granulated sugar, and is used in houses 
to polish boilers and tea-kettles. 

23. Most of the fly-papers and liquids and powders used 
in houses to destroy bugs and roaches contain arsenic or 
other poisons, and are dangerous. Some of the common 
water-color paints, and colored glazed papers which children 
use to make pin-wheels of, are poisonous if tasted of. 

24. Treatment. — If there is reason to believe that a per- 
son has swallowed a poison, make him vomit by giving a 
large cupful or more of tepid water with a tablespoonful of 
salt in it, and by tickling the throat with a feather or by 
putting the forefinger into the throat. If the substance 
swallowed has scalded or burned the throat and other parts, 



1 38 HEALTH LESSONS. 

give the person freely white of eggs, milk, olive-oil, or thin 
mucilage. If the poisoned person seems drowsy, give a sup 
of strong coffee every ten minutes till he brightens up. If 
the skin is poisoned and inflamed, proceed as in a case of 
burn or scald. If it is inflamed by the puncture of a thorn, 
or poisonous part of a plant, proceed as under the head of 
stings and slivers. 

25. Poisonous Plants* — There are certain poisonous 
plants which grow in fields, vacant lots, along the road-side, 
or in waste places. In this class are the stramonium or 
Jamestown weed, with its cream-white, funnel-shaped blos- 
soms, every part of plant poisonous ; the common or black 
nightshade, leaves apparently worm - eaten, yellowish-white 
flowers, round, blue-black berries. 

Hyoscyamus or henbane, tall weed, large leaves, blossoms 
dull-yellow, rimmed with purple, flower-cup urn-shape. 

Wild parsnip, tall, grooved stem, flowers yellow and 
small, and in clusters. 

Fool's parsley, hollow stem, dark-green leaves, white 
flowers, bad odor, fruit or seeds long and ribbed. 

Poison ivy, oak, or vine, climbs trees, fences, etc., or runs 
along the ground, leaves in groups of three, shining green, 
change in the fall to bright yellow, orange, or mahogany 
color, berries dull-white, become pale, shiny-brown. The 
woodbine, or Virginia creeper, often mistaken for the ivy, 
has leaves in groups of five, dark-green, changing in autumn 
to bright crimson, berries dark-blue. It is not poison. 

* It will be well for teachers to show pictures of poisonous plants. 
Refer to " Medical Botany of North America," William Wood & Co., 
and to Prang & Co.'s plates and descriptions of poisonous plants ; also to 
photographs of plants by C. L. Lochman, New York. 



ACCIDENTS, INJURIES, AND POISONS, 189 

There are also lobelia, or Indian tobacco, ten to fifteen 
inches high, leaves hairy, flowers small, pale-blue. The 
daphne, scarlet-poison berries. Mushrooms, some of which 
are poisonous, especially the crimson capped one dotted 
with white, and the May-apple, leaves, stem, and root ; also 
stinging nettles, poke-weed, and cela?tdine. 

26. Some poisonous plants grow principally in moist or 
damp places, or in dark rich ground-in the woods. In this 
class are yew or ground-hemlock, leaves and black seeds con- 
tain poison. Sheep-laurel, sheep-poison, or lamb-kill, leaves 
pale-green, flowers purplish - crimson. The stagger - bush, 
Indian poke, Jack-in-pulpit, and skunk-cabbage. 

Poison-hemlock, three to six feet high, stem with purplish 
spots, flowers white and small in clusters, root deadly poison. 
Water-hemlock, flowers white, in umbrella-like clusters, seeds 
or fruit ribbed and nearly round, root deadly, herbage fatal 
to cattle. Poison sumac, dogwood, or alder, in swamps, small 
tree, leaves green, change in the fall to bright-yellow and 
crimson, leaf-stem remaining red ; flowers small and greenish. 

Bittersweet (not the popular cultivated plant by that 
name), in low ground, is a shrubby climber, blossoms blue- 
purple, with an orange-colored center, berries oval, and red. 
Spotted cow-beam or mush-squash. 

27. There are garden plants, various parts of which are 
poisonous. Among these are : Belladona, or deadly night- 
shade, leaves purplish, blossom pale-purple and bell-shaped, 
berries large and green, and change to black ; the foxglove, 
flowers large, with deep purple spots, and the larkspur, Eng- 
lish honeysuckle, monk's- hood, anemone, buttercup, and clematis. 



INDEX. 



Accidents, 177. 
Air, importance of, 30. 
Aif-supply, 42. 

Airing or ventilating a room, 43. 
Alcohol as a poison, 187. 
Aleoholic drinks, effects of, on brain 
and nerves, 152, 153. 

6*n stomach and intestines, 65. 

on heart and circulation, 86. 

on the bones, 127. 

on the muscles, 138. 

on the appetite, 78. 
Alcoholic drinks, interference with 
purity, 27. 

interference with sleep, 145. 

relation to food and warmth, 103. 
Anatomy, 17. 
Animal food, 67. 
Apoplexy, 84. 

Appetite, use and abuse, 49. 
Arteries, 84. 
Auricles of the heart, 88. 

Bandaging, 178. 
Bathing, 113. 
Bile, the, 62. 

13 



Blood, the, 82. 
Blood-vessels, 83. 
Bleeding, how to stop, 179. 
Bones, description of, 125. 

how affected by food, etc., 126. 

number of, 127. 

how joined together, 127. 
Brain, location of the, 149. 

duties of, 152. 

as the superintendent, 156. 
Bread, 71. 
Breathing, 38. 
Bronchial tubes, the, 40. 
Bruises and sprains, how to relieve, 

181. 
Butter, 70. 

Burns and scalds, how to relieve, 
181. 

Capillaries, the. 83. 

Cells, 27. 

Chewing, importance of, 56. 

Chloral, dangers from, 154. 

Chloroform, dangers from, 154. 

Chyle, the, 62. 

Circulation, the, 84. 



192 



INDEX. 



Cleanliness, value of, 26. 

how to maintain, 104. 
Clothing, use of, 94. 

material of, 95. 

color of, 96. 

fit of, 96. 

dryness, etc., of, 101. 
Cocaine, dangers from, 154. 
Condiments, 74. 
Contents or machinery of the body, 

17, 18. 
Cooking, value of, 53, 54. 
Convulsions, 182. 
Cuticle, the, 108. 

Development, 20. 
Deformities from fashions, 99. 
Dirt, origin and prevalence of, 

105. 
Drinks, use of, 75. 
Drum of the ear, 168. 
Dust, 105. 

Ear, arrangement of the, 168. 

bones of the, 168. 

care of the, 169. 
Eggs as food, 68. 
Exercise, 117. 
Eye, the, 170. 

care of, 172. 
Eyebrows, the, 170. 
Eye-winkers, the, 170. 

Fainting, how to relieve, 181. 
Fat, importance of, in food, 69. 
Feet, care of the, 100. 
Filters, 78. 



Fits or convulsions, what to do, 182. 
Food, its use, 48. 

how changed into blood, 56. 

variety of, 51. 
Foods, 67. 
Foreign bodies in nose, ears, and 

eyes, 184, 185. 
Fractures, or broken bones, what to 

do, 186. 
Framework, the, 130. 
Fruit as food, 74. 

Games, rough, 119. 
Germs of disease, 105. 
Grain -food, 70. 
Growth, 18. 
Gullet, the, 58. 

Hair, the, no. 

Hearing, 167. 

Heart, the, 85. 

Heat-stroke, how to relieve, 98, 182. 

Holidays, use of, 143. 

Hygiene, 17. 

Intestine, small, the, 62, 157. 

large, the, 65. 
Intestinal juice, 62. 

Joints, what they are, 15. 
use, location, etc., 127. 

Lacteals, the, 60. 
Larynx, the, 40. 
Lens, crystalline, the, 171. 
Life, what it is, 23. 
Ligaments, 127. 



INDEX. 



193 



Light, value of, 31. 
Limbs, the, 14. 
Lungs, the, 40. 
Lymphatics, the, 85. 

Meat as food, 69. 
Milk as food, 68. 
Motion, extent and necessity of, 

23. 
Muscles, 132. 
voluntary, 134. 
involuntary, 135. 
proper use of, 136. 
improper use of, 137. 

Nails, the, no. 

Nerves, the, 150, 151. 

Nose, the, its use in breathing, 41. 

(Esophagus, the, 60. 

Oil-glands, 109. 

Opium, dangers from, 154. 

as a poison, 187. 
Optic nerve, the, 171. 
Oxalic acid, as a poison, 1S7. 

Palate, the, 59. 

as a janitor, 156. 
Pancreatic juice, the, 62. 
Perspiration, the, 108. 
Physiology, 17. 
Poisons, 186. 
Poisoned air, 36. 
Poisonous plants, 188. 
Pores, the, 107. 
Pupil of the eye, 171. 
Purity or cleanliness, 26. 



Rest, 140. 
Retina, the, 171. 

Saliva, the, 57. 
Scalds, how to relieve, 18 1 . 
Sensations, 162. 
Senses, the, 162. 
Self-control, value of, 160. 
Sight, 170. 
Shoes, 100. 
Skin, the, 107. 
Skeleton, the, 127, 136. 
Sleep, 145. 
Smell, 165. 

Soups and broths, use of, 70. 
Spinal cord, the, 151. 
Sprains, how to relieve, 181. 
Stings and slivers, 184. 
Stomach, the, 60, 157. 
Suffocation, how to relieve, 183. 
Sunlight, value of, 33, 34. 
Sunstroke, 98, 182. 
Swallowing, 59. 

Taste, 165. 

Teeth, the, 57. 

Throat, the, 58. 

Tobacco, dangers from use of, 153. 

effect of, on muscles, 138. 
Touch, 164. 
Trachea, the, 40. 
Trunk, the, 14. 

Vegetable food, 70. 
Veins, the, 84 
Ventricles of the heart, 88. 
Vocal cords, the, 41. 
Voice-box, the, 41. 



194 



INDEX. 



Warmth, need for, 21. 

use of, 25. 

how to maintain, 91, 
Water, value of, as food, 75. 



Water, impure drinking, 77, 
Wear and repair, 81. 
Windpipe, the, 40. 
Work and play, 116. 



THE END. 



